Developing a Virtual Museum: Experience from the Design and Creation Process

Abstract

Virtual reality technology has grown significantly in recent years. The arrival of Head Mounted Displays (HDM) on the market for end-users has positioned these technologies as a new channel to promote new simulated or contextualized experiences. We have used the design and creation strategy to develop a virtual reality experience for the Oculus GO and Quest HDM. We digitized 30 pieces from nine local museums to provide an experience guided by a character that represents the main artisan work of the local region. A usability test was performed, showing that participants felt a high degree of immersion and realism. They were able to complete the assigned tasks, and results suggest that the software meets the main objective. Furthermore, the creation of this virtual reality (VR) experience has shown how important it is to make users a part of the creation process, as well as to develop a process to make the software useful to them and other users. Some recommendations are made based on the experience of the development, and comments are given on each step of the design and creation strategy.

An Evaluation of the Effects of a Virtual Museum on Users’ Attitudes towards Cultural Heritage

“…There are also applications from MR systems that integrate virtual with collaborative interaction methods to facilitate enhanced cultural learning in virtual heritage [6]. Finally, VR systems can be used for the presentation of virtual museums [7] and interactive software [8] with experiences related to cultural heritage.…”

“…In this context, several opportunities have appeared for the dissemination of culture and heritage among websites, interactive experiences such as video games, virtual [7,14] and augmented reality [15], and serious games [8], to name a few. Traditionally, the way to appreciate this tangible heritage was to visit the museums and other cultural institutions in person.…”

“…With these factors in mind (namely the utilization of technologies and advances in digitization processes), we developed a virtual museum [7] that includes several pieces from a local network of museums through a 3D digitization process. This virtual museum has a VR version for Oculus Go [17] and Quest [18] devices, and we also made this experience available in a desktop version due to the pervasiveness of computers.…”

“…Type of multimedia experience: As a means of controlling the type of multimedia experience that participants took part in, half of them were provided with a Windows Store download link for a 3D simulator containing a variety of virtual copies of real life cultural heritage objects from the Maule region [7]. The other half of the participants received a link to an interactive website hosted on the University's website.…”

The Evolution of Interactivity, Immersion and Interoperability in HBIM: Digital Model Uses, VR and AR for Built Cultural Heritage

“…The first aspect focuses on technical IT characteristics, and the second refers directly to the type of experience that VR can invoke in the user. As is well known, a virtual environment requires three constituents: content, geometry and dynamics [84][85][86]. The content is defined by the objects and the information associated with them in the environment, and each represented thing can be described as an "object" of the VR world.…”