Individually Integrated Virtual/Augmented Reality Environment for Interactive Perception of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The need to preserve and care for cultural heritage makes information technology a tool for finding, documenting, describing, and visualizing important historical and archaeological sites. This article offers an example of a demo platform providing users with a unique immersive experience in a virtual clothing museum environment. The proposed concept combines such types of media resources as audio, video, text, and 3D models of the virtual environment. The augmented reality elements perform the function of additional informing the users about certain facts about the exhibits. The methodology of platform development and the application’s architecture are described. The creation of the platform is intended to achieve the objectives set by VR/AR technologies, namely, to provide a wide range of opportunities for interaction of the user with the objects of cultural heritage. The peculiarity of the application is the possibility to choose between exploring the objects of cultural heritage on one’s own or following a programmed path with the help of an audio guide. The proposed solution can be used for stationary expositions of art objects, historical or archaeological relics, and objects of national economy and creativity. Testing of the demo version showed a rather high degree of user satisfaction (89% of respondents reported a positive experience). Users noted the atmospheric and immersive experience of virtual reality. The developed platform can perform educational and popularization functions.