virtual heritage: new technologies for edutainment

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Virtual Heritage: new technologies for edutainment Advisor Prof. Andrea BOTTINO 21 March 2014 Candidate Andrea MARTINA

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Virtual Heritage: new technologies for edutainmentAdvisorProf. Andrea BOTTINO21 March 2014CandidateAndrea MARTINA

Good Morning,Im Andrea Martina, and my research activity dealt with the New technologies for edutainment in Cultural heritage field.

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introducionDo you remember that you just saw the rooms of Raffaello and Caravaggio? 31%NOMusei Vaticani2

I will start my presentation with two facts. First. Some years ago, researchers of the CNR during a survey with the visitors of the Musei Vaticani, found that 31% of the people exiting the two most important halls of the paintings including works of Raffaello and Caravaggio, did not realize they were in these rooms.2

introducionDo you remember that you just saw the rooms of Raffaello and Caravaggio? 31%NOAmong these 6 paintings, which of these are in the room you just visited? 10% Noone32% One21% Other paintingsMusei Vaticani2

And when asked to recognize the images of paintings into the halls they just visited, most of the people gave the wrong answer.We can conclude that visitors didnt pay attention to artworks or that the museum was not capable of involving people in an engaging and captivating learning experience. 3

introducion

Some things can be restored. But if they are brought down in chunks and then ground into bits, what will be there left to do?Professor RakhaldasSengupta (75, archaeologist):

Second fact. In March 2001 the 2 Great Buddhas of Bamiyan statues were destroyed by the Taliban government. Clearly the artifact could not be restored or enjoyed as physical item. So, what can be done to preserve their heritage significance? Is there any way to communicate the value of ancient ruins and artistic treasures, whether they can still be visited, or no longer visible?4

motivations

Virtual HeritageVHVirtual RealityICTVirtual Heritage4

We think that Virtual Heritage is a valuable tool to tackle these and many other issues related to the management of the cultural heritage. VH relates to the integration of ICT technologies and cultural heritage, and involves VR/AR/Mobile Computing and edutainment approaches to disseminate historical and artistic contents.The three basic concepts of my research are:5

motivations

Virtual HeritageVHMuseum roleCommunicate in the best ways using the most appropriate toolsVirtual RealityICTVirtual Heritage4

1_ One of the main goal that cultural institutions have to achieve is to properly communicate researches to the public, meeting the expectations of the reference audience and using the most appropriate tools available. 6

motivations

Virtual HeritageVHMuseum roleCurrent visitorsCommunicate in the best ways using the most appropriate toolsActive creators of their own experienceVirtual RealityICTVirtual Heritage4

2_ The characteristics of current visitors and tourism have deeply changed. Nowadays visitors are not satisfied with passively seeing something, but they want to become active actors in their own visiting experience.7

motivations

Virtual HeritageVHMuseum roleCurrent visitorsConstructivits theoriesCommunicate in the best ways using the most appropriate toolsActive creators of their own experienceLive a learning experienceVirtual RealityICTVirtual Heritage4

3_ According to the Constructivist learning theories, in order to acquire new knowledge people must interact with cultural contents, ask questions, explore and be involved in these experiences.8

motivations

Virtual HeritageVHVirtual Learning Environment VLEMuseum roleCurrent visitorsConstructivits theoriesCommunicate in the best ways using the most appropriate toolsActive creators of their own experienceLive a learning experienceVirtual RealityICTVirtual Heritage4

In order to cope with these issues, we investigated several approaches.In particular, we focused on VLE, that are real-time interactive environments where visitors can experience a journey through time and space.

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOVdR / SANDS / TENOCHTITLANRecreation of context5

The main concept of the VLE is the possibility to carefully reconstruct any environment in order to recreate the original context of any cultural object or historical character, enhancing their significance.In the VE, users are free to navigate and interact with the objects it contains and with the multimedia cultural contents related to the elements in the environment. This navigation is not limited to a spatial navigation, but we can also explore the temporal dimension experiencing the changes that affected a location during its different epochs.Some examples in the video represent the virtual reconstruction of several places that do not exists anymore or underwent drastical changes.

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOSANDS / SAN SALVARIO / VIRTUAL MEEnhancing presenceVisual qualityAudio (auralization)Population AI

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During the development of such projects, we aimed at providing effective learning environments. One of the concepts that are related to the effectiveness of a VR application is the presence.Presence can be defined as the subjective belief of users that they are in a certain place, even if they know that the experience is mediated by the computer. Thus, we focused our research on enhancing the sense of presence along three main lines:1_ maximizing the quality of the visual feedback, 2_ involving different sensory channels, as the acoustic channels, and maximing the output quality; 3_ developing environments populated by characters at different levels of autonomy and intelligence

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOSANDS / RIVIERA / RAIFruition of contents7

Cultural collections contain a huge amount of data related to cultural objects. Nowadays a relevant issue for Cultural institutions is to provide access and fruition of cultural archives to any possible user and to help them to better understand the relationships among cultural items.To this end, we first experimented the direct integration of the cultural contents into the virtual environment. Then, we further explored the problem exploiting the VE as a visual interface to the DB contents, where items in the DB can also be queried by navigating the virtual environment and interacting with the elements it contains. Finally, to further facilitate the rising of these connections we explored the integration of conceptual maps into this framework. The CM provide an arrangement of concept in a deductive consequence, which strongly helps users to create their own personal narrative and to build by their own knowledge.

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOGAINE / BEYOND PICTURE / NUINatural Interaction8

Another factor affecting the effectiveness of a VLE is the quality of the interaction with the environment and its digital contents, which should be the easiest and most intuitive possible. The most recent and extremely successful paradigm is named Natural Interaction.The basic idea is to develop techniques allowing users to interact with technology as they are used to interact with the real world, that is by looking at objects, touching them and using gestures and voice to issue commands.We thus explored different solutions. For instance, we experimented Tangible User Interfaces, developing an interactive table whose surface is basically a large touchscreen and that can also recognize objects that are placed on it. In other projects, we analyzed the use of gestures. For instance, we developed a head tracking system that allowed to change the view on the virtual world according to the current users position, thus transforming a static painting into a dynamic view on it. In another project, we conducted a detailed user survey to develop a vocabulary of full-body gestures that can be used to interact with a virtual environment in a way which is natural, effective and easy to remember.

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOSKYLINEDROID / MUSAContents in mobility9

Another dimension explored in my research is the mobile one. The recent technological developments allows the creation of applications supporting users in mobility. Location-based services can also provide tailored information during the visit according to the visitors characteristics. This allows curators to generate custom exhibit paths, also playing particular attention to children and persons with disabilities.Moreover the system can present high-quality interactive multimedia contents through edutainment approaches.Among the various LBS, of particular relevance is the support to navigation.Visitors need to be guided through indoor and outdoor spaces. These guiding capabilities can also affect the cultural experience, creating ad-hoc visiting paths on-the-fly for each different visitor.

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research activityVIDEO RIASSUNTIVOODTS / VT / GAINE / MUSAGamification10

Another relevant theme is gamification. This concept explicates the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. The presentation of cultural content, normally identified by most of the public as boring, can be turned in a funny and engaging experience exploiting gamification techniques.In our projects, this approach has always been fundamental. In some cases simple games were included within more complex applications while in other projects the entire system was based on a gamification approach.For instance, in GAINE the management of an ancient city is explained to children giving them the possibility to practically manipulate buildings and to analyze the consequences of their actions in a tabletop digital game. In MusA, a museum exhibit path is totally designed as a game. Children are invited to solve a detective case collecting proofs and evidences dispersed in the museums' halls, while discovering the museums treasures.

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publicationsMartina A., Bottino A., Rubino I, Cook D.One Day at the Sands: Exploring Las Vegas Intangible Heritage Through Virtual Reality. In: International Journal of Intangible Heritage. (under review)

Castano R., Dotto G., Suma R., Martina A., Bottino A.,VIRTUAL-ME: A Library for Smart Autonomous Agents in Multiple Virtual Environments. In: Agents, Virtual Societies and Analytics (AVSA 2014). (Accepted March 6, 2014)

I. Rubino, J. Xhembulla, A. Martina, A. Bottino, G. Malnati (2013) MusA: Using Indoor Positioning and Navigation to Enhance Cultural Experiences in a museum. In: SENSORS, vol. 13 n. 12, pp. 17445-17471. - ISSN 1424-8220

G. Armanno, A. Bottino, A. Martina (2012) SkyLineDroid: An Outdoor Mobile Augmented Reality Application for Virtual Heritage. In: International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Tourism (CUHT'12), Cambridge, 25-27 febbraio 2012.

A. Martina, A. Bottino (2012) Using Virtual Environments as a Visual Interface for Accessing Cultural Database Contents. In: International Conference of Information Science and Computer Applications (ICISCA 2012), Bali, Indonesia, 19-20 November 2012. pp. 1-6

Bottino A., Martina A. (2011) Beyond the picture. In: LECTURE NOTES IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, vol. 128, pp. 751-756. - ISSN 1876-1100Bottino A., Martina A. (2010) The role of gaming industry and open source philosophy in the creation of affordable virtual heritage solutions. In: New Trends in Technologies: Devices, Computer, Communication and Industrial Systems / Meng Joo Er. SCIYO Publishing, pp. 421-444. collaborationsVilla della Regina and Superintendence for the Historical, Artistic and Anthropological Heritage of Piedmont (Salone Italiano dellEducazione 2011 and in a workshop at the OGR in Torino for the celebrations for 150 years from the Unification of Italy.University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Department of Energy (DENERG) and Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) Politecnico di Torino.11

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conclusionEnhancing presenceRecreation of contextFruition of contentsNatural InteractionContents in mobilityGamificationUsabilityUser Center DesignVirtual Heritage Virtual Learning Environments12

According with the current significant changes in cultural scenario, we think that Virtual Heritage can strongly help.Starting from the recreation of the context of historical and artistic objects, we studied how to enhance the users presence in order to improve their experience. Than we focalized on different methods to improve the fruition of cultural contents, analyzing as well gamification and mobile approaches. In order to improve the user experience, natural interfaces were studied. All those aspects were studied and tested with a strong attention to usability aspects and through a User Center Design approach.In conclusion, I am pleased to emphasize that my research field is in greedy development. In the next years the relevance of Virtual Heritage is likely to increase thanks to the continuous technological improvements. And I really hope cultural institutions can finally understand the strong advantages of the introduction of these technologies in museums.

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