Behind Livia's villa: A case study for the devolution of large scale interactive "in-site" to "on-line" application

Abstract

This work presents a methodology for designing online web presentations reusing a large scale, interactive and immersive VR installation by mapping assets as well as interactions to a low capability environment. With the emergence of WebGL plugin-free interactive 3D graphics inside limited information processing environments, e.g. browser technologies, becomes reality. However, macro VR worlds typically use large or even out-of-core data sets in order to produce and communicate scientifically relevant content. The major challenge still remains on how we can redesign and optimize applications that have been planned for macro VR worlds and map those to adequate concepts of micro scale worlds. We showcase this in the area of virtual archaeology for the online virtual museum of "Villa Di Livia", part of the bigger project "Flaminia Reloaded", in which several limitations could become crucial. The elaborated workflow could easily be adopted by other VMs and assist in future migrations. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.