Designing virtual reality reconstructions of etruscan painted tombs

Abstract

The application of Virtual Reality technologies is becoming largely widespread in the Cultural Heritage field. Digital restorations, virtual reconstructions, interactive navigations, are just some of the possible applications. In this paper, we present a preliminary Virtual Reality reconstruction of the Etruscan painted Tombs in Tarquinia. Only a part of these tombs are open to the public: using Virtual Reality it could be possible to visit all the Necropolis, with the possibility to interact with the environment, and to visualize additional information. The application has been designed in order to be modular and flexible. To test the application, we have used the Virtual Theater of the University of Milan, a Virtual Reality installation based on a large semi-cylindrical screen and passive stereoscopic visualization. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.