Virtual Reality Museum Research Articles

EmojiChat: Toward Designing Emoji-Driven Social Interaction in VR Museums

Museums have traditionally been places of learning, evolving into spaces that also facilitate socializing. This shift is particularly evident in virtual reality (VR) museums, which have become popular venues for activities like friend gatherings. However, education has long established the social norm that museums need to “maintaining silence.” Even in virtual environments, this can influence visitor behavior. This perception often prevents people from using verbal communication, leading them to prefer quieter forms of interaction. In museums, including the VR museums that now largely replicate the layout of physical museums, this preference may be reinforced by specific features, such as spaciousness, quietness, and block-based layouts, which may create visual obstructions, restricting interaction modes dependent on shared view, such as gesture interaction. These limitations necessitate the introduction of an additional interaction mode. Emojis, with their capacity for rapid message exchange and adjustable positioning, emerge as a suitable interaction mode in this context. Thus, we introduce EmojiChat, an innovative VR museum experience designed to respect the social norms of traditionally keeping quiet while promoting natural interaction. We first design and iterate a customized emoji set for the museum context through semi-structured interviews, participatory design, and an online survey. Then, this emoji set is integrated into a VR museum to facilitate interaction between visitors. Finally, we conduct a comparative study to evaluate the performance of EmojiChat. Our results show that the integration of emojis can improve communication enjoyment and efficiency. Additionally, we identify usage patterns for interaction modes and the advantages offered by emojis. We also identify several challenges that point toward future directions for enhancing emoji integration and facilitating social interaction.

가상현실 박물관의 공간 체험 특성에 관한 연구

This paper explores the application of media in virtual reality museums, analyzing the cultural aspects of museums and the cognitive aspects of visitors. The study redefines the concept of the “embodied body” from embodied cognition theory to support virtual reality museum spaces and assess their effectiveness for exhibits. It examines the advantages of digital media and seeks innovations to improve current displays. The findings suggest that enhancing bodily participation and the authenticity of digital twin environments, along with improving temporal dynamics and narrative interactivity, can enhance the correlation between digital media and spatial experience.

Evaluating the impact of passive physical everyday tools on interacting with virtual reality museum objects

Museums are increasingly embracing new methods and technologies to enhance the visitor experience. Virtual Reality (VR) provides the opportunity to experience objects and situations that are not readily available or don’t otherwise exist making it well suited to museum applications. Museum visitors represent an ultra-diverse cohort with technology experience levels ranging from first-time users through to experts, and typically needing to interact with the exhibit with little to no induction and training, and in many instances as a once off encounter. To support such users, this paper evaluates the impact of passive physical everyday tools to provide passive haptic feedback and enhance user interaction with desk-top sized museum objects. Museums face challenges in exhibiting larger objects and in this work the cargo area of a utility vehicle (i.e. ute) was selected as contextually suitable larger object. Three different interaction techniques are used with and without everyday physical tools and experiments undertaken to investigate the impact of the physical tools on the usability and user experience with free-hand interaction techniques. A comparison between using the passive physical tool for the interaction technique and without showed improved efficiency for two of the techniques and positive impact on the user experience with the mechanically more complex of the interaction techniques. These insights may prove useful in the design of interaction techniques for enhanced free-hand interaction with museum objects in VR.

Exploring user acceptance of online virtual reality exhibition technologies: A case study of Liangzhu Museum.

Museums increasingly rely on cutting-edge digital technologies to attract visitors. Understanding the intricate factors influencing user acceptance of these technologies is, however, crucial for their effective use. This study therefore proposes a model, grounded in the technology acceptance model, to investigate user acceptance of online virtual reality (VR) museum exhibitions. Leveraging the online VR exhibition at Liangzhu Museum as a case study, data were collected from 313 participants and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with Smart PLS. Semi-structured interviews with 15 individuals were conducted to complement the quantitative findings. The results reveal that factors such as interactivity, immersion, and presence positively influenced users' intrinsic technological beliefs (perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, and perceived usefulness), ultimately affecting their willingness to use and intention to visit on-site. Notably, immersion had a direct positive effect on perceived usefulness. There is a pressing need to leverage digital and web technologies to cater to the increasingly complex and diverse needs of online visitors, and emphasizing navigational performance in online VR exhibitions is also paramount for enhancing the overall user experience.

Onboarding and offboarding in virtual reality: A user-centred framework for audience experience across genres and spaces

Virtual reality (VR) technology is an emerging medium of experience in many different public-facing entertainment and cultural contexts, such as immersive theatre, live performance, VR film festivals, gaming arcades, escape rooms, and museum exhibitions. The processes of ushering audience members or users into the virtual experience and out again, to which I refer here as ‘onboarding’ and ‘offboarding’, have been considered within some specific contexts, or on a case-by-case basis, but to date no systematised consideration of VR onboarding and offboarding has been produced. One reason for this is that ambiguities in disciplinary and practical definitions of immersion have obscured the relationship between VR technology and users. Clarification of this relationship results in clear evidence of a need for attention to onboarding and offboarding processes in public-facing contexts. In this paper, I define onboarding and offboarding, and present a framework for considering the onboarding and offboarding experiences of virtual reality audiences that helps stakeholders identify both their responsibilities to audiences and the best way to facilitate the immersive experience. This framework is based upon identifying experience goals, centred on the affordances of virtual reality and principles of immersion and presence, and utilises the Immersive Audience Framework developed by StoryFutures in its interdisciplinary research with immersive audiences since 2019.

Pemanfaatan Museum Sumpah Pemuda sebagai Sumber Belajar melalui Teknologi Virtual Reality

AbstractThis research aims to explore the utilization of the Youth Pledge Museum as a learning resource through Virtual Reality (VR) or Virtual Tour technology, and to understand the process of using VR in history education. The research adopts a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. The focus of the study includes three main components: 1) Museum collections and their management, 2) The process of utilizing the Youth Pledge Museum collections as a source of historical learning through VR technology, and 3) The role of teachers in history education through VR technology. Data for the research were collected through observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis related to the Youth Pledge Museum and the use of VR in history education. This article describes the various collections held by the Youth Pledge Museum and the technologies that have been developed, including Virtual Reality (VR), which can be used in history education. The steps for using VR in history education include: 1) Selecting a relevant Virtual Reality museum for the learning material, 2) Preparing the necessary applications and equipment, 3) Setting up an Android phone, 4) Ensuring internet connectivity, 5) Finding the link to the Virtual Reality content of the Youth Pledge Museum, 6) Accessing the discovered link and starting the Virtual Tour. As a form of technology-integrated learning, the use of VR is expected to accommodate the development of 21st-century skills and encourage students to become active learners. This approach aligns with the student-centered learning concept applied in the independent curriculum, allowing students to construct their own knowledge.Keywords: museums, youth pledges, learning resources, Virtual Reality.

Exploring the Structure of Proteins and Other Biomolecules with a VR Museum: Lessons in Classroom Integration

The three-dimensional nature of macromolecules is often difficult for undergraduate students to grasp. This leads to difficulties in understanding key concepts in Biochemistry, such as protein function and conformational change. Virtual reality (VR) technologies, which can aid students in three-dimensional visualizations, have been shown to increase student motivation, but published reports do not universally agree about whether VR improves student comprehension. Here we present the implementation of a VR experience that was designed to complement existing biochemistry experiments and an analysis of both student engagement with and understanding of the material presented in VR. Results indicate that students enjoyed this interactive, immersive activity and suggest evidence of increased understanding. However, the effectiveness of the VR experience─and effective assessment of such an experience─may depend on a number of factors.

A Virtual Reality Museum to Reinforce the Interpretation of Contemporary Art and Increase the Educational Value of User Experience

The cultural heritage sector increasingly integrates augmented and virtual reality (VR) solutions to meet dissemination and interpretation needs for its collections. As research in the field grows, the required entertainment and learning impacts of such applications are rising. This study presents a VR museum that aims to facilitate an understanding of cultural heritage. More specifically, an exhibition was designed, curated and developed in a VR environment based on a framework that encourages the public’s interaction with the artworks and experiential learning through activities that utilize VR functionalities in a meaningful way. This framework was applied in a contemporary art museum where the description of artistic concepts is not always obvious to the general public due to the abstract forms of the artworks or the particularities of different artistic movements. This paper focuses on the application development and three user experience evaluations (museum experts, technical experts and general audience). The results were positive regarding the perceived sense of control, usability and the feelings of the user, including their sense of entertainment. Additionally, the participants valued the educational value of the developed activity types and their usefulness. Moreover, the users were interested in exploring the cultural heritage content available in the exhibition, and they would suggest the application to colleagues or friends.

Impact of Correlated Color Temperature on Visitors’ Perception and Preference in Virtual Reality Museum Exhibitions

From the perspective of psychophysiological evaluation, this paper provides a theoretical reference for the lighting settings of museums. In order to study the impact of correlated color temperature (CCT) on visitors' perception and preference in museum exhibitions, an experiment was conducted in the ergonomics laboratory of Nanjing Forestry University. We invited 50 participants to visit the virtual reality museum exhibitions with different CCTs, built by Autodesk 3D's Max 2017. Specific psychophysiology variables-eye movement, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV)-and the perception and preference of participants were collected. The results indicated that the association of CCT with eye movement, HRV, and some perceptual dimensions was significant. Under high illumination conditions with different CCTs, the pupil diameter and warmth decreased with the increase in CCT, but the comfort and pleasure scores increased first and then decreased. The CCT scenes sorted by LF/HF ratio from high to low were 4500 K, 6000 K, and 3000 K, which was consistent with the results of preference ranking. The LF/HF ratio showed significant sex differences and major discrepancies.

THE METAVERSE: A VIRTUAL WORLD IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND

This paper explores the actual and future impact of the Metaverse as a virtual space. Thus, it focuses the probe on the technical challenges that face this everlasting emerging technology. Today, the Metaverse presents a digital environment to build collective architecture and historical heritage in a virtual space. In this digital world, the modeling and design methodology is based on individual archetypes that can puzzle new elements. Currently, traditional methods require change and adaptation in both the education and work market, especially due to the remote-work integration in the last few years. For example, many components are required to build a Virtual Reality (VR) laboratory or a VR museum. Virtual environments present us with novel opportunities to bring together the real world with a virtual extension or duplication. This technology will remove physical boundaries and design constraints and consequently will open a gate to a metaphysical world. Imagine a world with limitless space where gravity doesn’t exist, and water can float upward. There is no limit for art and architecture but even this magic has its limitation related to computer technology. Therefore, this paper surveys the state-of-the-art computational technologies and the ecosystems of the Metaverse. The paper covers the fields of Computer Vision, Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, and future mobile networks. In application, the Metaverse will allow users to have a fantastic experience being part of worldwide entertainment and socio-economic network.

Predicting user visual attention in virtual reality with a deep learning model

Recent studies show that user’s visual attention during virtual reality museum navigation can be effectively estimated with deep learning models. However, these models rely on large-scale datasets that usually are of high structure complexity and context specific, which is challenging for nonspecialist researchers and designers. Therefore, we present the deep learning model, ALRF, to generalise on real-time user visual attention prediction in virtual reality context. The model combines two parallel deep learning streams to process the compact dataset of temporal–spatial salient features of user’s eye movements and virtual object coordinates. The prediction accuracy outperformed the state-of-the-art deep learning models by reaching record high 91.03%. Importantly, with quick parametric tuning, the model showed flexible applicability across different environments of the virtual reality museum and outdoor scenes. Implications for how the proposed model may be implemented as a generalising tool for adaptive virtual reality application design and evaluation are discussed.

The Use of Virtual Reality in Geo-Education

The paper discusses the technological capabilities of virtual reality (VR) in the field of education as a highly developed form of computer modeling. VR is con-sidered to be able to revolutionize the education field since it provides better en-gagement in learning activities than other teaching methods. In order to study the impact of VR technology on ensuring the quality of e-learning, an experiment is conducted during the Physical Geography online course. The current research in-volves 60 third-year students from the Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical Uni-versity, Moscow Pedagogical State University, and Ajman University. All the re-spondents were divided into two groups. The training of the first group is under-gone through distance learning in the Moodle e-learning system, while the educa-tional process of the second is supplemented with the technological capabilities of the latest VR services (Google Earth, Apple Maps, My Way VR, The VR Muse-um of Fine Art). During the study, students’ subjective assessment of the training is performed according to the basic, expected, and desirable criteria. The exami-nation is carried out in two stages - before and after the course. At the first stage of the assessment, the use of VR corresponds to the desired quality of the educa-tional product. However, after the course and the acquiring of virtual experience, the transfer of the students' desired training criteria into the expected can be ob-served. This indicates a high degree of adaptability of VR technology in educa-tion as well as an increase in the respondents' requirements against the quality of subsequent training courses. Consequently, a significant impact of immersive technology's evolution on the demands on the e-learning quality can be noted.

Analysis of the Audience Needs for VR Image Design Elements in the Virtual Reality Museum by KANO Model

가상현실(VR) 기술은 몰입과 상호작용 등의 특성을 통해 광범하게 적용된다. 특히 박물관은 전통전시 방식에서 상호작용이 부족하므로 VR기술 활용에 중요한 장이 되고 있다. 그런데 선행연구들은 디지털화된 전시 방식과 상호작용을 위한 기술적 측면에 집중되어 VR 박물관의 VR영상 디자인을 위한 관객의 요구를 반영한 디자인 요소에 관한 연구는 미흡한 실정이다. 그러므로 본고는 문헌연구에 의한 질적 연구로 VR영상과 가상현실 박물관에 대하여 파악하여 큐레이터와 관객의 관계를 통해 VR 영상디자인을 위한 관객의 요구를 구체화하였다. 실증적인 연구를 위하여 가상현실에서 몰입감과 상호작용과 상상력을 통하여 가상현실 박물관의 VR영상 디자인 요소를 10가지로 추출하였다. F1은VR상호작용 체험, F2는주제 소개용 애니메이션, F3은가상 전시물, F4는가상 가이드, F5는가상 루트, F6은 전시물 소개, F7은정보 확장, F8은상호작용 게임 , F9은전시물 복원, F10은상호작용 학습으로 정리하여 관객들의 요구를 측정하였다. 이를 위해 Kano모형을 활용하여 설문지를 만들었고 연속분석법과 Better-worse으로 10가지 요소의 중요도를 측정하여 순위를 확정하므로서 가상현실 박물관의 VR 영상디자인 요소를 제시하였다. 실험 결과는 F3> F6≈ F9> F1> F5> F4> F7> F8> F2> F10이었다. 본 연구의 결과를 통해 가상현실 박물관의 VR 영상 콘텐츠 디자인 기획을 위한 근거를 마련하였다.Virtual reality(VR) technology is widely applied through features such as immersion and interaction. In particular, museums are becoming an important venue for the utilization of VR technology because of lack of interaction in traditional exhibition. However, prior studies have focused on the technical aspects of digital exhibition and interaction, and the research on design elements reflecting the audience s demand for VR image design of the VR Museum is insufficient. Therefore, this paper is about qualitative research based on the literature research to understand VR image and virtual reality museum, and to materialize the audience s demand for VR image design through the relationship between curator and audience. For the empirical research, the VR image design elements of the virtual reality museum were extracted into 10 types through immersion, interaction, and imagination. F1 is the VR interaction experience, F2 is the theme introduction animation, F3 is the virtual exhibition, F4 is the virtual guide, F5 is the virtual route, F6 is the exhibition introduction, F7 is the information expansion, F8 is the interactive game, F9 is the restoration of the exhibition, F10 The audience s needs were measured by summarizing them as hidden interaction learning. For this purpose, a questionnaire was created using the Kano model, and the VR image design of the Virtual Reality Museum was presented by determining the ranking by measuring the importance of the 10 elements by continuous analysis and Better-worse. Experimental results were: F3> F6> F9> F1> F5> F4> F7> F8> F2> F10. Through the results of this study, the basic theory for VR design of VR museum was presented.

Investigação da atenção do estudante: o uso da realidade virtual no ensino de computação

Resumo: Esta pesquisa explora os resultados de atenção e meditação em estudos teste realizados com leituras de texto e com experimentos em um museu de realidade virtual que emprega diversas tecnologias, como imagens, vídeos, reconstruções 3D etc. São apresentados os critérios de imageabilidade, interatividade, navegabilidade, personalização e comunicação com o chatterbot. Os resultados das análises estatísticas do estado de atenção do estudante são investigados e o impacto da realidade virtual analisado. Evidencia-se vantagem no potencial educacional incorporando complexas construções 3D em um Mundo Virtual imersivo. Este artigo contribui para a compreensão dos estímulos de atenção no impacto educacional com realidade virtual. Assim sendo, conclusões têm um impacto mais amplo e podem ser generalizadas para serem relevantes após as investigações concluídas.
 Palavras-chave: Realidade virtual. Estados de atenção. Impacto Educacional.

3D Virtual museum generation by using SuperSQL

PurposeCurrently, the results of database acquisition are variously expressed, but it seems that users’ understanding degree will be improved by expressing some search results such as images of products of shopping sites in three dimensions rather than two dimensions. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a system for automatically generating 3D virtual museum that arranges 3D objects with various layouts from the acquisition result of relation database by SuperSQL query.Design/methodology/approachThe study extended the SuperSQL to generate 3D virtual reality museum using declarative queries on relational data stored in a database.FindingsThis system made it possible to generate various three-dimensional virtual spaces with different layouts through simple queries.Originality/valueIt can be said that this system is useful in that a complicated three-dimensional virtual space can be generated by describing a simple query and a different three-dimensional virtual space can be generated by slightly changing the query or database content. When creating a virtual museum, if there are too many exhibitions or when changing the layout, the burden on the user will be high. But in this system, it is possible to automatically generate various virtual museums easily and reduce the burden on users.

Cross-objects user interfaces for video interaction in virtual reality museum context

Museums are good places for learning and nowadays many museums are integrating digital media such as video and increasingly moving towards using virtual reality. In the physical world people used to seek information from object surfaces e.g. posters on the wall and this has been used as a metaphor in the virtual reality museum: numerous videos were inhabited within virtual objects and shaped cross-objects user interfaces (COUIs). However, how such interfaces perform for video interactions still needs more investigations. In this study we implemented and investigated COUIs in comparison with the conventional card-style user interfaces and the plain virtual reality user interfaces in the virtual reality museum. The results reported no significant differences in the perceived usability or learning experience between these user interfaces, except the COUIs had a lower level of satisfaction than the card-style user interfaces. However, the COUIs showed greater efficiency with shorter eye fixation durations and higher saccade frequencies, and within these COUIs instances, namely the fully-detached, semi-attached, and fully-attached COUIs, the fully-attached instance was closest to the form of interacting with physical object surfaces and it reported highest efficiency as well. Rationales behind these results and implications generalising for the future design of COUIs, are discussed.

LA PERCEPCIÓN DEL ESPACIO EN LA VISUALIZACIÓN DE ARQUITECTURA MEDIANTE REALIDAD VIRTUAL INMERSIVA

Immersive virtual reality constitutes a powerful tool for the vivid exploration of virtual spaces. The feeling of presence produced in the user by the action of seeing the digital space just pointing the view in any direction is greatly enhanced when adding the capability of walking physically during the experience. This paper describes aspects related with the experimentation of this hybrid space, real and virtual at the same time, that was implemented by the authors in an immersive virtual reality museum installation called “The Empty Museum”.

Virtual Reality and Museum: An Educational Application for Museum Education

This paper discusses the development of a virtual reality museum. An effort was made so that the virtual museum represents the Byzantine, medieval museum in Rhodes as closely as possible. Simple and low cost tools were used to allow rapid development of relatively good quality applications. This was attempted to validate our belief that the construction of VR applications is within the abilities of the majority of computer users. In this case and taking into account the well documented educational value of VR, it would be possible to assert that teachers could construct and use VR applications in their everyday teaching.