Virtual Museums as a Means for Promotion and Enhancement of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The use of virtual reality and ICT in the museum context provides a new key to understand and promote Cultural Heritage: thanks to these technologies the user has the opportunity to experience without the need to come into contact with the real objects. For the museum institutions VR and ICT are a valuable tool that allows them to perform different cultural tasks, addressing the public in a much more effective way than has previously been possible. Especially through VR, it is possible to reconstruct the original context of the artworks through the interconnection of contents: the virtual visitor, while viewing the artwork, can consult useful contents for the learning process. Another revolutionary element introduced by the new technologies is linked to the possibility of creating virtual exhibitions through which it is possible to exhibit works that are not accessible or not visible. These reflections and these theoretical principles were the basis for the development of the project proposal presented in these pages, that was born as a collaboration between the R<sup>3</sup>D Lab of the Museo della Rappresentazione of University of Catania and the CIMS Lab of Carleton University, Ottawa. It consists in the creation of a virtual museum, the Timeless Museum, in order to create an educational experience, able to make the users reflect on topics such as the value of history, the sense of beauty, the relationship with our past and our future, the protection and transmission to future generations of the artistic heritage we have.</p>

Virtual Reality Models Based on Photogrammetric Surveys—A Case Study of the Iconostasis of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral Church of Saint Nicholas in Sremski Karlovci (Serbia)

“…The two most popular, however, are Unity [20,22,23,28,33] and Unreal Engine [19,21,24,26,34]. Authors that selected the Unreal Engine [21,24,26,34], pointed out its intuitive use mode, based on the Blueprint Visual Scripting system, as the major characteristic. Compared to the others, this system is extremely flexible, as it relies on the concept of using a node-based interface, thus enabling a user to create gameplay elements directly from the Unreal Editor [34,38].…”

“…Some of the projects aim to provide virtual access and better understanding of cultural values through VR environment, dealing with digitally recreated inaccessible historical places [21], as well as ancient artefacts that no longer exist [22]. Other interesting works used 3D models of architectural objects [23] and historic artefacts [22][23][24][25], obtained through digital photogrammetry for creating virtual museums (VMs), as a key means for cultural heritage documentation and dissemination.…”

Reliving history: the digital reconstruction of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan

“…Specifically, VR and AR have a lot to offer in terms of understanding and promoting cultural heritage: Innovative technologies can shorten the distance between cultural spaces and users, becoming a sustainable tool through which people can enjoy and learn more effectively about culture. Thanks to these technologies the user can experience the artefacts in their original contexts without the need to come into contact with the real objects and can consult in a much more effective way than has previously been possible cultural contents useful for their learning process (Bolognesi & Aiello, 2019;Aiello, Fai & Santagati, 2019, Banfi, Brumana & Stanga 2019, Dhanda et al, 2019.…”

Learning Through Serious Games: A Digital Design Museum for Education

“…This tool can become particularly effective when applied to the museum environment, both because, by promoting innovative forms of enjoyment, it helps to attract categories of users often far from museums, and because it lends itself, thanks to its ductile nature, to deal with different themes, such as cultural awareness (Froschauer et al, 2010;Huang et al, 2013), historical reconstruction (Christopoulos et al, 2011;Doulamis et al, 2011) and heritage awareness (Cao et al, 2011;Bellotti et al, 2012;Froschauer et al 2011Froschauer et al , 2013Tangui 2013). In some of the most complex cases, serious games are enriched with the potential offered by Virtual Reality (VR): in this regard, the museum sector is perhaps one of the contexts in which VR reaches its maximum communication potential (Aiello et al, 2019;Guazzaroni, 2019;Kang et al, 2019;Kargas et al, 2019), firstly because it allows to come into contact with the museum artworks in a way that was unthinkable until recently, and secondly because, when used as a support to enhance a real museum, it is able to indefinitely expand the boundaries of the physical place and give greater visibility to small institutions on the margins of large museum circuits. The absence of spatial barriers within the virtual dimension also makes it possible to create, through VR, digital databases that make a potentially considerable number of artefacts accessible and interrogable, favouring contact with works that are often not exhibited to the public in the real world (because they are in restoration or stored).…”