Daniela Petrelli
Making virtual reproductions part of the visit - An exploratory study
2019-2020
Output: Conference Paper
This research explores, theorises, and empirically assesses the visitor’s experience of 3D reconstructions of the past. In the last 10 years Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have been used to create visions of the past to be consumed as an immersive experience (e.g. moving within a building in VR) or as an overlapping of the past on today’s world (e.g. graphics onto real views from the camera phone in AR).
However, neither of the two approaches have been studied from the visitors’ point of view. Through this research Petrelli contextualises and shares insight on how recreated visions from the past can be part of the visit through addressing the following: what is the role of the surrounding heritage and how do different technologies affect the visitors’ experience in place?
The experimental design crosses different technologies with different heritage types and different reconstructions to achieve the broadest possible understanding of how each component (the visual reconstruction, the audio narrative, the heritage surroundings) influence the visitors’ perception and experience. Although the sample of participants is limited, the findings illuminate what the most important factors are in making 3D reconstructions effective in themselves and as foundation for interactive storytelling. The findings highlight the experiential response to VR (visceral, embodied, subjective) vs. the rational response to AR (cognitive, comparative, objective). Petrelli presented this research as keynote lecture at the “3DVis: Symposium on 3D Visualization Technologies in Cultural Heritage” held online by the Museum of Natural History at the University of Oxford 1-2 December 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Research Output
This collection of images displays the outputs from this project. Find out more details in the full case study below.
Research Method
The study evaluates and compares two different types of technology (a tablet and a stereoscope) in two different heritage settings (a traditional museum and a house musuem and garden) to deliver the same content (3D reconstructions scenes and fragments of narratives). The images below illustrate such experimental setting.
Key Methodologies:
