A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage

Abstract

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Mixed Reality (MxR) have become popular immersive reality technologies for cultural knowledge dissemination in Virtual Heritage (VH). These technologies have been utilized for enriching museums with a personalized visiting experience and digital content tailored to the historical and cultural context of the museums and heritage sites. Various interaction methods, such as sensor-based, device-based, tangible, collaborative, multimodal, and hybrid interaction methods, have also been employed by these immersive reality technologies to enable interaction with the virtual environments. However, the utilization of these technologies and interaction methods isn't often supported by a guideline that can assist Cultural Heritage Professionals (CHP) to predetermine their relevance to attain the intended objectives of the VH applications. In this regard, our paper attempts to compare the existing immersive reality technologies and interaction methods against their potential to enhance cultural learning in VH applications. To objectify the comparison, three factors have been borrowed from existing scholarly arguments in the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain. These factors are the technology's or the interaction method's potential and/or demonstrated capability to: (1) establish a contextual relationship between users, virtual content, and cultural context, (2) allow collaboration between users, and (3) enable engagement with the cultural context in the virtual environments and the virtual environment itself. Following the comparison, we have also proposed a specific integration of collaborative and multimodal interaction methods into a Mixed Reality (MxR) scenario that can be applied to VH applications that aim at enhancing cultural learning in situ .

Heritage Buildings Representation and Extended Realities

“…VR can benefit from the development of 360° photography and videography to create virtual tours that can be useful especially in the field of real estate (Felli, Liu, Ullah, & Sepasgozar, 2018). VR also has the potential to simulate imaginative and existing physical environments along with their processes and environmental parameters (Bekele & Champion, 2019a).…”

“…According to (Milgram, Takemura, Utsumi, & Fumio, 1995), AR completes reality without completely replacing it. It aims to enhance the perception and understanding of the real world by superimposing virtual information on top of the real world view (Bekele & Champion, 2019a). Augmented reality is a collection of interactive technologies that merge these two elements; virtual and real, in real-time, providing accurate registration in three dimensions (Azuma, 1997).…”

“…This contrasts with VR's aim to transport users to a completely virtual world. AV is closely aligned to AR in terms of purpose, in the sense that both aim at enhancing the environment they are applied to (Bekele & Champion, 2019a). However, AV applications to the built heritage are rather limited to date.…”

Design of Digital Interaction for Complex Museum Collections

“…All these digital technologies, collectively known as Mixed Reality (MR), allow us to navigate from the virtual world to the real one with different degrees of immersivity in the interplay between real and digital objects. MR possesses great potential for cultural learning [8,9].…”

Tangible VR: Traversing Space in XR to Grow a Virtual Butterfly

“…Virtual Heritage (VH) applications have extensively employed immersive reality technologies for virtual reconstruction, simulation, educational, and explorative themes [1]. Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential of creating immersive high-quality 3D environments for users to experience the cultural heritage (historical monuments, natural landscapes, etc).…”