A Conceptual Human–Centered Approach to Immersive Digital Heritage Site/Museum Experiences: The Hidden Waterfall City

Abstract

In this paper we present a conceptual Digital Heritage (DH) site in two different forms. The work includes several Unity Scenes built into one package with interactions between a virtual museum and the conceptual DH site. The main objective here is to create a large and realistic user experience using the latest Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) technologies available to public. This enables us to study the future users’ behavioral patterns in such environments in the next step. The findings can be contributed to the field, mainly for the future technical development. However, the pilot user study undertaken step by step during the development process of this conceptual DH package is not included in this paper as we mainly look at the technical aspects and the overall concept at this stage. The major effort in this study is to employ the available IVR resources to create such environments as proof of concept in large scale. Although (affordable and available to public) IVR technologies have been significantly improved in the recent years, still there are many areas that need to be empowered. DH has long been one of the main targets in cultural studies. In this paper we examine the major interactions in IVR, applicable to DH, using a practical Human-Centered approach as a pilot test for the future behavioral patterns study related to this conceptual work. Therefore, as explained, this study does not represent a real case of DH or a historical review as the focus is mainly on the technical/design aspects, involving the currently available human interaction elements in IVR.