Evergreen: A Mixed Reality Transformation for Experiencing Plant Dyeing

Abstract

Plant dyeing is a traditional process of dyeing with plants, which is natural, environmentally friendly and safe. However, in modern times, due to the widespread popularity of low-cost chemical dyeing and changeless conventional exhibition forms, plant dyeing is gradually losing people's attention. With an increasing urgent need to promote this sustainable ancient handicraft, the transformation and evolution of conventional plant dyeing exhibitions are of great importance, towards experiences that are helpful for the public to understand courses of plant dyeing, during which the advocated products bring people the aesthetic satisfaction and consumption desire. To enhance the effectiveness and improve the learning experience of exhibition activities, we applied MR (Mixed-Reality) technologies to construct an environment by merging the real and virtual worlds. Allowing participants to interact with the coexisting physical and digital objects, this MR environment sets up an interactive feedback information loop between the virtual world, real world and participants, intensifying the sense of reality in user experience. In this paper, we designed a transformation of promotion from traditional physical exhibitions to mix-reality ones, and implemented Evergreen, a MR interactive space that allows people to experience plant dyeing. As it was demonstrated at an art exhibition in Xiamen city, China, we conducted user tests on site to verify the effectiveness of this proposed transformation.