Virtual Valcamonica: Collaborative Exploration of Prehistoric Petroglyphs and Their Surrounding Environment in Multi-User Virtual Reality

Abstract

In this article, we present a novel, multi-user, virtual reality environment for the interactive, collaborative 3D analysis of large 3D scans and the technical advancements that were necessary to build it: a multi-view rendering system for large 3D point clouds, a suitable display infrastructure, and a suite of collaborative 3D interaction techniques. The cultural heritage site of Valcamonica in Italy with its large collection of prehistoric rock-art served as an exemplary use case for evaluation. The results show that our output-sensitive level-of-detail rendering system is capable of visualizing a 3D dataset with an aggregate size of more than 14 billion points at interactive frame rates. The system design in this exemplar application results from close exchange with a small group of potential users: archaeologists with expertise in rockart. The system allows them to explore the prehistoric art and its spatial context with highly realistic appearance. A set of dedicated interaction techniques was developed to facilitate collaborative visual analysis. A multi-display workspace supports the immediate comparison of geographically distributed artifacts. An expert review of the final demonstrator confirmed the potential for added value in rock-art research and the usability of our collaborative interaction techniques.

Technologies for Social Augmentations in User-Embodied Virtual Reality

“…Both telepresence systems and avatar-mediated systems have demonstrated the functionality to replicate a high degree of nonverbal behavior [Kulik et al 2018;Orts-Escolano et al 2016;Otsuka 2016;Roth et al 2016c]. To our knowledge, the combined replication of body movement, facial expression, and gaze behavior in a shared and HMD-based avatar-mediated system has not yet been presented, and represents a first requirement (RE1) in order to support variable social augmentations features.…”

“…Fuchs et al [1994] conceptualized realistic telepresence systems based on a multi-camera ("sea-of-cameras") approach, which was later built on with multiple Kinect cameras [ Maimone and Fuchs 2011]. The systems from Beck et al [2013] and Kulik et al [2018] enables projection-based multi-user collaborative interaction by tracking the users' behaviors and appearance through multiple RGBdepth cameras. They found similarities in mutual understanding of pointing and tracing gestures for both, local and remote collaborating groups.…”

Construction of the Virtual Embodiment Questionnaire (VEQ)

“…Instead, understanding virtual embodiment has concrete and direct implications for research, design, and development. It is especially relevant for applications that consider therapy [2,19,57,59,65,66], entertainment and recreation [41,51,63], as well as collaboration and social interaction [8,44,45,73]. Previous research investigated virtual embodiment in various studies, developed individual questions, and proposed questionnaire item collections.…”

Real-Time Rendering of Point Clouds With Photorealistic Effects: A Survey

“…Additionally, hierarchical interpolation between LOD levels increased smoothness and temporal reusage decreased costly out-ofcore fetches. This approach was applied in an archaeological setting with features such as relighting and shadows in scenes with a torch tool and laser pointers with intersection testing [64].…”