Assignment 3 Report

Bring the museum home! A fantastic immersive experience for anyone who wants to have close contact with great artworks, without glass walls, rope barriers, and Covid. Simply put on your headset and enjoy your exploration of the VR museum.

Figure 1. Screenshot of the VR Museum Application

This is a museum-themed application with VR technology, which aims to offer a good visual and sensual experience for museum lovers and potential audiences. Without the restriction of time and space, people can walk around in the virtual scene that is simulated based on the real museum and closely observe and virtually ‘touch’ the paintings and sculptures that are presented on a 1:1 scale. The initial release of the application only contains some representative samples, such as the Egyptian cat sculpture with holographic plaque, the lion statue with variable color, and the grabbable Greek vase. More features will be done in the future release, such as background music for specific paintings that can be automatically triggered, and the interactive virtual UI for users to operate.

With the rapid development of information technology, building virtual museums by using VR technology, breaking the physical and space limitations of traditional museums (Lugrin et al. 2018), is an effective way to maximize the museum functions, and meet the multi-aspect needs of the public. In particular, under the pandemic of Covid-19, people’s lives have been greatly affected and they even can’t leave the house. By adopting VR technology, people can have their museum tour at home without time and regional constraints. VR technology offers a 360-degree panoramic experience, the virtual scenes restore real-world situations and the objects within scenes are presented in 3D forms, which brings a more authentic and immersive experience compared with the traditional 2D technologies. VR technology is considered the most suitable means for people to address the issue of not being able to go to a real museum. As virtual museums can be ‘moved out’ for tour exhibitions unless having applicable VR devices, which play a significant role in disseminating knowledge and public cultural enlightenment (Kabassi & Maravelakis 2015). VR museums can considerably reduce installation time and exhibition costs as well (Lugrin et al. 2018). Moreover, exhibits and scenes as virtual data assets, which are actually stored on servers, so there are no risks of being destroyed or stolen.

While considering the interaction design of this application, firstly a storyboard (Figure 2) is created. Suppose Tom wants to go to the museum, however, there are Covid restrictions and the museum is closed. Fortunately, a friend suggests that VR can be used to address the issue. By using an Oculus Quest headset, Tom is able to see a virtual museum and he can interact with the exhibits with his virtual hands. What an amazing immersive experience for Tom and he doesn’t need to go to a real museum anymore. Based on the storyboard, interactions that can meet the users’ requirements and improve the user experience are taken into account. First of all, in most museums, precious artworks are placed behind glass walls or rope barriers to protect them from being damaged, so people do not have the opportunity to observe the detail of the exhibits or to touch the items. Even though some of the exhibits can be touched or held, there are risks of falling down and being smashed into pieces due to carelessness. VR and interactive 3D technology can help address the issue, which is a useful and convenient alternative that enables the presentation of artifacts that are not suitable to be directly exhibited to the public due to their high costs and fragility (Flotyński, Dalkowski & Walczak 2012). Secondly, a better visual and sensual experience can be obtained if the users can ‘customize’ the exhibits, such as changing the appearance, material, and color, scaling the objects to the desired size, or moving the items around and placing them anywhere. Finally, operations that can not be done in the real world can enhance people’s interest. For example, people can use magic to teleport themselves from one place to another in flash. All the interactions are designed from a customer perspective and aimed at providing a better user experience with easy and good-to-use operations.  

Figure 2. Storyboard of the VR Interface Design

This application is developed based on Unity, designed for the Android platform, and needs to work with Oculus hardware. The application provides a panoramic display as well as different types of interaction for users. Users can walk around the virtual room, closely looking at the paintings and sculptures, and touching or grabbing the artwork. For example, users can grab the vase, hold it and spin around to see all the details of it (e.g., the materials and textures), or even can throw it away without worrying about damaging it. Moreover, users can touch the statue and experience a magic change of color, which can make the museum exploration more interesting. If the users feel tired walking for a long distance, they can use the amazing teleportation to move to any place they want, which can also greatly enhance the user experience. In addition to the existing interactions, there will be holographic instructions for each exhibit in the next stage of application development, which brings an attractive visual experience. Background music will be provided as well to heighten the atmosphere. 

There are three types of objects within this application that can be interacted with. The first one is the lion statue (Figure 3), which will change its color as the users touch it with the gesture of pointing out the index finger. The second one is the two vases (Figure 4), which can be grabbed and thrown away by pressing the trigger button of the controller. The third one is the Teleporter (Figure 5), by pressing the aim button and pointing to any target place and then pressing the trigger button, teleportation can be achieved.

Figure 3. Lion Statue

Figure 4. Vases

Figure 5. Teleporter

References

3Dfrk, Picture frames with photos, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/interior/picture-frames-with-photos-106907.

Brandon Tummon, PBR Lion Statue | 3 Variants, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/pbr-lion-statue-3-variants-168377.

Flotyński, J, Dalkowski, J & Walczak, K 2012, Building multi-platform 3D virtual museum exhibitions with Flex-VR, 2012 18th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (pp. 391-398), IEEE, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6365950?casa_token=b0svQIR-IncAAAAA:6BBxOJ3IKOP2JMeEYIYf-bI4pjRL9nddpyvAV0iN0e5kkANCzp-tn6TCpaAkDRtWX7AbDt-SmAUM.

Fomenos, Vase Egypt Free, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/vase-egypt-free-149689.

Fractured Brain Studios, Interactive 3D Radio (Vintage), https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/electronics/interactive-3d-radio-vintage-16021.

I_Jemin, Simple VR Teleporter, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/simple-vr-teleporter-115996.

Kabassi, K & Maravelakis, E 2015, Walkthrough evaluation of a VR museum for the physical environment, 2015 6th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications (IISA) (pp. 1-5), IEEE, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7388088?casa_token=ryqjIe9tD9QAAAAA:53NexgrGh4vzNWkENVro3cs66eU1-kxWDmUDi3NxOuID_sFi8xMGindKKbie66qUbBDBHfRlKl65.

Lugrin, JL, Kern, F, Schmidt, R, Kleinbeck, C, Roth, D, Daxer, C, Feigl, T, Mutschler, C & Latoschik, ME 2018, A location-based VR museum, 2018 10th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games) (pp. 1-2), IEEE,

Nokobot, Egyptian Tomb: Cat Statue, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/historic/egyptian-tomb-cat-statue-119784.

Nokobot, Greek Temple: Vases, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/historic/greek-temple-vases-149134.

Oculus, Oculus Integration, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/oculus-integration-82022.

Purple Sky, HQ Hangar Free, https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/hq-hangar-free-212795.

SimpleTeleportBehaviour Script, https://mylo.utas.edu.au/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?ou=526208&type=content&rcode=UTAS-2904749&launchFramed=1&framedName=Tutorials.

ToggleLightSwitchBehaviour Script, https://mylo.utas.edu.au/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?ou=526208&type=content&rcode=UTAS-2904749&launchFramed=1&framedName=Tutorials.