Category Archives: visualisation

Virtual Heritage book

Academic, Announcements, archaeology, augmented reality, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, Open Access, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

Hello, with eight authors for eight chapters I am proposing a concise guide on virtual heritage to publishers. I believe I have been allowed UNESCO chair/Curtin funding to pay publishing open access fees (so the book can be free as online PDFs) and hopefully reasonably priced to purchase.

I believer we now have two recommendations for external reviewers but we still need to get all author chapter abstracts ready and the proposal to the publisher for approval. Each chapter will be a taut 3500 words with 1-3 images.

Given the book is aimed at graduate or senior undergraduate students who may not be familiar with an overview or specific topics of virtual heritage, what title is best?

Virtual Heritage in Focus?

Virtual Heritage: A Concise Guide?

Also, are we missing an important chapter/theme subject?

Foreword: Classrooms and Projects

Preamble

  1. Past Worlds: Creating and Animating
  2. Gaming Heritage: archaeology and Minecraft
  3. Mixed Reality
  4. Mapping Meaningful Journeys From Ancient Pasts
  5. Photogrammetry at Scale
  6. Photogrammetry for the People: Towards VR
  7. Hybrid Interactions in Museums
  8. Evaluation in Virtual Heritage

Glossary

VR travel and tour apps

digital heritage, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , , , ,

The Financial Times has published an article entitled “Could this be the moment virtual-reality travel finally takes off?” (You may have to answer a survey to read the article):

“The cartoonish game is less R&R, “more a place of decompression as action”, says Andrew Eiche, chief technology officer at Vacation Simulator’s developer, Owlchemy Labs. He is sceptical that today’s VR headsets are powerful enough to deliver truly realistic recreations of places such as the Sistine Chapel. “Is it really any different to looking at it on a monitor?” he says. “You need to go beyond looking to acting — that is where VR really excels.”

Examples include https://grandtour.myswitzerland.com/ and https://www.virtualyosemite.org/ especially https://www.virtualyosemite.org/virtual-tour/

What are the best VR tours and travel apps? This is a small subset of the best VR apps (the best VR apps according to digital trends).

A company has also made a VR (well, Cinematic/360 VR) of Antarctica (“VR in the freezer”) that is touring Australian museums, and will tour internationally.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

A travel and leisure online article has already suggested VR tours can help relieve the boredom of pandemic lockdowns:

But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you’re confined to your home. According to Fast Company, Google Arts & Culture teamed up with over 2500 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world..

Two months ago the Guardian reviewed the world’s best virtual museum and art gallery tours.

Generally these are 360 panoramas, not true VR, but there are convenient tools to help you create your own panoVR (cinematic VR).

Lifewire has listed “7 Great Virtual Reality Travel Experiences”. One example of note is the VR Museum of Fine Art.

There are also projects taking off using live guides through the web with a camera, or who take you on a tour of a real museum with a real but physically remote guide/curator so that museums can still be quasi-open during lockdown.

An example of remote tourism is by the Faroes Islands, a very isolated Scandinavian island nation. They also explain their project:

Via a mobile, tablet or PC, you can explore the Faroes’ rugged mountains, see close-up its cascading waterfalls and spot the traditional grass-roofed houses by interacting – live – with a local Faroese, who will act as your eyes and body on a virtual exploratory tour.
The local is equipped with a live video camera, allowing you to not only see views from an on-the-spot perspective, but also to control where and how they explore using a joypad to turn, walk, run or even jump!

Via a mobile, tablet or PC, you can explore the Faroes’ rugged mountains, see close-up its cascading waterfalls and spot the traditional grass-roofed houses by interacting – live – with a local Faroese, who will act as your eyes and body on a virtual exploratory tour.
The local is equipped with a live video camera, allowing you to not only see views from an on-the-spot perspective, but also to control where and how they explore using a joypad to turn, walk, run or even jump!

VR focus has an interesting article on the development of VR for tourism, and the Virtual Segovia project sounds like it is worth keeping tabs on.

Now before we look at the commercial VR content stores, there are cultural heritage organizations with VR tour/travel content. Some are available via Google .

Europeana

An online portal of major European libraries and museum collections, they have vintage stereo VR and examples of how to create stories and lessons with the stereoVR prints.

Google

For example, Google Earth and Google Earth Voyager (with sections on editors picks, games, layers, quizzes, nature, travel, education).

There is Google Earth VR https://arvr.google.com/earth/ for VIVE and OCULUS headsets (HMDs).

Even Google Streetview can be viewed in Google VR https://www.blog.google/products/google-vr/get-closer-look-street-view-google-earth-vr/

“The new version of Earth VR is available today for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. And if you don’t have one of those systems, you can still check out Street View in VR with your phone—just download the Street View app for Daydream and Cardboard.”

https://artsandculture.google.com/ is a wonderful sight and also has scavenger hunts, at, for example the British Museum.

There are also “virtual tours” based on Google Street View. For example, you can “virtually” visit Chernobyl. Here is an abandoned roller coaster.

An open source alternative to Google Maps is Open Street Map (OSM). There is a youtube video explaining how OSM data can be used with WebVR (“2019: VR Map: Using OSM Data In a WebVR Environment VRmap on Github”) and the app vrmap can be downloaded via Github.

Online/VR Models for Cultural Tourism/Travel

You can also visit online and via VR headsets repositories of 3D models of buildings and landscapes.

The Smithsonian allows you to view tour and download 3D artefacts and has interesting content, such as the Virtual Tour and the VR Hangar.

Sketchfab

But the biggest online 3D/VR repository is arguably Sketchfab. Sketchfab has a Cultural Heritage + History section.

Eg Hagios Aberkios (Theotokos) Monastery Church 9th from Cultural Heritage and History Top 10 – 2020 wk 21
Sketchfab also has a places and travel section.

CYARK is a volunteer organization that has scanned major cultural heritage monuments uses Sketchfab to present their models.

Minecraft VR

For something lighter, families can also visit Minecraft VR “PLUNGE INTO THIS NEW MINECRAFT DIMENSION ON OCULUS RIFT, WINDOWS MIXED REALITY, AND GEAR VR” and a trailer is on Youtube.

Games

Commercial game companies like Ubisoft have explored creating escape game VR and virtual tours inside physical exhibitions such as

Assassin’s Creed VR – Temple of Anubis. Gamasutra has explained their design process for these VR escape rooms.

“At XRDC in San Francisco today Ubisoft Dusseldorf’s Cyril Voiron took to the stage to talk a bit about his work on Ubisoft’s Escape Games, virtual reality experiences that challenge players to escape virtual puzzle rooms.”


NB Trotech exhibited a physical location VR game demo in 2018.

Like brains on your journeys? Not exactly tourism, but some VR games have an element of real-world tourism.

“Face all the horrors that the living and the dead can offer in this new VR adventure in The Walking Dead universe. Travel through the ruins of walker infested New Orleans as you fight, sneak, scavenge, and survive each day unraveling a city wide mystery within the iconic quarters. Encounter desperate factions and lone survivors who could be friend or foe. Whether you help others or take what you want by force, every choice you make has consequences. What kind of survivor will you be for the people of NOLA?”

Or do you want to explore alien worlds? “The latest update from Hello Games adds a whole host of much-requested features to No Man’s Sky, including full, end-to-end support for PlayStation VR.”

One can even “tour” medieval fantasy worlds, or at least the modifications (mods) that are created using the free game creation tools. Here I am referring to Skyrim VR. Can it handle mods? With certain caveats, yes (on PC that is). You can buy it on Steam. Requires Vive, Rift, Valve Index or Windows Mixed Reality. ($89.95 AUD)

COMMERCIAL STORES

Via stores with content for specific HMDs, you can also find VR travel locations. For example, the oculus store lists travel and tourism apps for the OCULUS Quest, RIFT, GO, Gear VR. Enter “travel” into the search bar for each device.

Oculus Rift/Rift S

For example for the Oculus Rift you can visit the “travel” Pantheon Tallinn, Rome Reborn, Patagonia or in Australia, “Claustral Canyon” in Sydney NSW (Rift, Rift S)

Quest

Enter the quest part of the Oculus website and search for travel.

Examples:

Gear

Navigate to the Gear VR Section of the Oculus site and search for travel.

Specific Examples:

Google App store

Enter travel VR into the search bar or tour VR

  • Google Expeditions (free) The Expeditions app and Cardboard viewer and Cardboard Camera were built to bring immersive experiences to as many schools as possible.
  • Titans of Space Plus ($10) Titans of Space® is a short guided tour of our planets and a few stars in virtual reality. Works with Google Cardboard.

Apple App store (for Apple phones)

Viveport (HTC)

Viveport is an online app store for the primary VIVE and Oculus headsets/Windows and has some travel content VR apps

  • Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass is the first virtual reality (VR) experience presented by Musée du Louvre. On view from October 24, 2019 to February 24, 2020 in the Napoléon Hall, this VR experience is an integral component of the museum’s landmark Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, which commemorates the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death in France. An extended home version of the VR experience is now available for download through VIVEPORT and other VR platforms, including mobile VR on iOS and Android, for audiences across the globe.
  • AWAVENA “For the Amazonian Yawanawa, ‘medicine’ has the power to travel you in a vision to a place you have never been. Hushahu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa uses VR like medicine to open a portal to another way of knowing. This stunning VR experience, directed by the legendary Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, follows her Emmy Award-winning VR film “Collisions.””
  • Church art of Sweden.
  • A Glimpse into China.
  • Virtual Touring of DunHuang: Mogao Cave 61
  • MasterWorks: Journey Through History “Travel to three continents and visit some of the world’s most amazing places that span over 3000 years of human history. Discover the fate of the ancient capital of Thailand, the mysteries of a pre-Incan temple in the Peruvian Andes, the astonishing Native American cliff dwellings of Colorado, and the monument [al stone carvings of Mt Rushmore
  • “in South Dakota. The MasterWorks Museum transports you to four fully explorable environments where you can collect artifacts and learn from archaeologists and scientists as you unravel the mysteries of who built these amazing places and learn about the challenges they face today in a rapidly changing climate.” [now supports Tobii Eye-Tracking!]
  • The Holy City Documentary
  • Nefertari: Journey to Eternity
  • VR Angkor Wat Guided Tour – Cambodia

Current HMD costs/availability

Don’t have a suitable Head Mounted Display? Choice au have a useful guide.

Google Daydream standalone or smartphone VR

  1. Google Daydream View runs with an android phone (Galaxy, Pixel, Moto, LG, Zenfone etc) costing around $330-360 AUD on eBay
  2. Google Daydream Standalone VR (coming soon)

Rethinking Virtual Places

Academic, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation,

I have written a book on the above which looks like (touch wood) will go into production.

I have about 30 images in the planned book but am wondering if I can or should place there an image (8×11 inches, landscape orientation or portrait if there is an area for the cover page text). Do any of the below look ok? Or should I ask a game company for screenshot permission?

Chapter titles are:

1 A Potted History of Virtual Reality
2 Dead, Dying, Failed Worlds
3 Architecture: Places Without People
4 Theories of Place & Cyberspace
5 Rats & Goosebumps-Mind, Body & Embodiment
6 Games are not Interactive Places
7 Do Serious Gamers Learn From Place?
8 Cultural Places
9 Evaluating Sense of Place, Virtual Places & Virtual Worlds
10 Place-Making Interfaces & Platforms
11 Conclusion

Initial image: Microsoft HoloLens in the Duyfken showing mixed reality maps and 3D models (Mafkereseb Bekele PhD project); Ikrom Nishanbaev and Susan at Ballarat Heritage Weekend, Ballarat Town Hall; Ikrom and public member, Ballarat; the HoloLens demo’d at the WA State Archives..

“Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities” free for 7 days

Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, Book, book chapter, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, HCI, heritage, infrastructure, Open Access, publication, respositories, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities (2017) is free to access for one week, get free access to the book (via this link) for 7 days.

After this 7-day period, you can buy a copy for £10/$15!

You can also visit the official Routledge History, Heritage Studies etc. Twitter page

and thanks to Routledge editor Heidi Lowther.

free Critical Gaming eBook for 7 days

Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Biofeedback, Book, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, HCI, heritage, infrastructure, Open Access, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage  (2015 edition) is in a Routledge campaign for May (2020), which allows anyone to register and get free access to the book (via this link) for 7 days. After this 7-day period, they can buy a copy for £10/$15!  *Trust me this is a lot cheaper than before!

Also check out the official Routledge History, Heritage Studies etc. Twitter page

Is there a catch? I honestly don’t know but don’t think so!

Calls for articles in 2020

digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Journal, virtual heritage, visualisation

ETC press: Well Played

Special Issue Call for Proposals: Well Played: Playable Theatre: For this special issue we invite experiential play-throughs, theoretical papers, critical analyses, and post-mortems by practitioners, across domains from around the world, that explore the many facets of live, interactive experiences. As an interdisciplinary issue, we welcome researchers and creators from theatre, digital and analog game studies, performance studies and related disciplines.

All submissions are 31 May 2020. All submissions and questions should be sent to: well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu

Change over time Journal

The concept of “integrity” is central to the organizing principles and values of heritage conservation and is frequently evoked in international charters, conventions, and official recommendations. Generally speaking, integrity refers to the wholeness or intactness of a tangible object, place, or property and is a measure by which UNESCO determines the Outstanding Universal Value of a site.1 As a guiding principle of conservation practice, the concept of integrity has evolved from 19th century ideas of the artist’s intent, which located integrity in a moment in time (Viollet le Duc), to 21st century framings of integrity as an emergent condition as proposed by the 2005 Faro Framework Convention which suggests that integrity is neither fixed nor static but is understood through a process of interpreting, respecting, and negotiating complex, and at times, contentious values. Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 5 June 2020. Authors will be notified of provisional paper acceptance by early July 2017. Final manuscript submissions will be due 3 January 2021.

MIT Presence

Guest Editors: GunasekaranManogaran, Hassan Qudrat-Ulla, Ching-Hsien Hsu, Qin Xin Paper Submission Deadline 25-08-2020; Author notification 15-11-2020; Revised papers submission 25-01-2021; Final Acceptance 30-03-2021

JOCCH

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage – emerging computational and analytical methods and technologies with archival practice (including record keeping), and their consequences for historical, social, scientific, and cultural research engagement with archives. We want to identify potential in these areas and examine the new questions that they can provoke. At the same time, we aim to address the questions and concerns scholarship is raising about issues of interpretation raised by such methods, and in particular the challenges of producing quality – meaning, knowledge and value – from quantity, tracing data and analytic provenance across complex knowledge production ecosystems, and addressing data privacy and other ethical issues.

World History Connected

World History Connected is seeking papers for its next three issues 17.2 ( June 2020), 17. 3  (October, 2020) and 18.1, (February 2021), for special sections that will address new research on, and fresh approaches to, the teaching of 1) the place of the Classical World in World History, from the militarization of Roman elephants to the concept of the Axial Age (deadline for submissions is April  6, 2020); (2) themes in Southeast Asia in World History from Lidar to maritime subjects (deadline for submissions is August 3, 2020) and 3) Games and Simulations in World History, from the use of historical content, to the process of construction and marketing, to use in the classroom (deadline for submissions is November 2, 2020).

 

 

 

 

Writing Your Own Position Description

Academic, Digital Humanities, job, virtual heritage, visualisation

More than a decade ago I was asked to write my own (ideal) job description.

A lot has changed since then but it was an interesting exercise, and I recommend it. In a few weeks I might even write my own new ideal job description.

Position description for <insert University research centre here>

Job title: Director of Research into Virtual Places

Duties

  1. Help <the centre> structure research agenda and aims.
  2. Develop research resources; establish academic and professional terminology, evaluation strategies, rigorous research methods and innovative case studies that are likely to be of use to other researchers.
  3. Advise on, direct and augment the publication record and reputation for <the centre> as mentor for junior researchers and in own research field.
  4. Chair and advise <the centre> research committee on new and emerging research trends, events, gaps, and issues.
  5. Help mentor and coordinate (and in some cases, supervise), students who can combine innovative technological research with theoretically polished writing that reveal constructive but critical thinking.
  6. Develop some or all of the below research themes via collaboration and personal research.
  7. Help develop research-industry collaborations, and associated industry links (in digital media, tourism, digital entertainment, etc).

Address the Below Research Themes as A Researcher

  1. Virtual places, theory, definition, and design.
  2. Meaningful Interaction in virtual places (appropriate inbuilt evaluation, public and specialist annotation methods, serious gaming and instructional design issues of virtual places, natural mapping for thematic interfaces and peripherals to afford improved platial experiences).
  3. Presence (especially cultural presence) in virtual places: terminology and experimental validation (clarify the relationships between place, presence, and intentional/non-intentional interaction).
  4. Prototyping virtual places and environments: develop and evaluate new techniques and procedures.
  5. Research Methodologies for virtual places: internal and external, pre and post-experience, emic and etic methods and tools for virtual or otherwise digitally mediated places.

Expected <Research Centre> Outcomes

  1. A strong international academic profile through advising on, directing and augmenting the publication record and reputation for <the centre>.
  2. A strong web presence.
  3. A flourishing staff-student research culture.
  4. The research committee has been helped by the research director to create and maintain a lucid and coherent ethical clearance procedure for proposed experimental designs involving user testing and the general public.

Expected Technical Skills

  1. Some experience in digital media skills (including web design).
  2. 3D and related design skills in creating virtual places.
  3. Experience in creating or supervising prototypes.
  4. Ability to run, mentor or advise on experimental designs, case studies, and evaluations.

Suitable Background

  1. Related academic qualifications in architecture, philosophy, engineering, or HCI.
  2. Familiarity with the research fields of virtual environments/ VR, virtual heritage, place theory, the design and use of online places, architectural theory of place, philosophy and aesthetics and place, and presence research.
  3. Experience in developing and or supervising virtual environment research, digital media research, and methodological studies into appropriate research methods (especially spatial design research) at tertiary level.
  4. Experience in game design may be beneficial.
  5. Experience with Instructional design and user documentation (for procedures, methods, and terminology.
  6. Some experience in digital media skills (including web design).
  7. 3D and related design skills in creating virtual places.
  8. Understanding of scripting issues in creating virtual places.
  9. Experience in creating or supervising prototypes.
  10. Experience with both academic studies in the area and industry practices in IT.
  11. International academic profile and reputation for research, speaking, and publication in cultural presence, meaningful interaction, and virtual places.

Suitable Aptitudes/Skillsets

  1. Ability to work with different skill sets, cultural backgrounds, professional perspectives, and disparate disciplines.
  2. Ability to work individually and as a member of a team.
  3. Work experience in different countries and cultures.
  4. Ability to source research material, write high quality academic publications, and deliver/edit online articles for  <the centre> website.
  5. Analytical mind.
  6. Experience in public speaking.

 

“Rethinking Virtual Places” on track

Academic, augmented reality, Digital Humanities, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Final internal review for my latest book draft was highly complementary so if given final  permission by the board, it should be published in IUP’s Spatial Humanities Series next year…

It becomes clear that the work stands on the shoulders of the research conducted by the author of many years. The topic of the manuscripts intersects greatly with many scholars’ research. It is hence of significant importance to many who engage in the generation and designing of places in virtual environments. The manuscript undoubtedly makes an impressive contribution to learn the author’s standpoint and see through his lens the research and developments of the field.C

Chapter Summaries

Chapter One explores the innovation and wilder inventions of early virtual environments and computer games. Have these developments, along with the increasing popularity of science fiction, promulgated fertile concepts of virtual places? I will suggest they have not.

Chapter Two explores the early development of virtual worlds, and game-worlds. Despite the hype of early virtual worlds, they, along with virtual museums (Huhtamo 2010), have seldom managed to capture and retain worthwhile visitor numbers (Styliani et al. 2009). What were the main features and attractions of virtual museums? Why have they gone in and out of fashion and have they actually been of any benefit to real-world museums? I will specifically look at how they use or change the use of space, and which if any place affordances were used in their design. I will then look briefly at the changing commercial and community virtual worlds that were developed, grew and fell during the last two decades.

Chapter Three discusses the representation-orientated and essentialist nature of major architectural theories. The second half of this chapter describes related design tools and asks a question of the training of architects for designing virtual places. If architects are not trained in usability and interaction design principles, how can they design engaging and profound interaction in these virtual worlds? Are traditional devices and technologies for designing, experiencing, and reflecting on place in danger of being lost in this digital era?

Chapter Four summarizes relevant philosophical exploration of real places and extrapolates them to virtual places and to notions of cyberspace. Related concepts discussed include the notion of VR as control, realism, authenticity and presence.

Chapter Five overviews select recent developments in neuroscience and how they may help our understanding of how people experience, store and recollect place-related experiences. Can these discoveries help our design of virtual places? Do philosophical explanations of memory and place (Ihde 2002, Tavanti and Lind 2001) reflect recent discoveries in scientific experiments (Farovik et al. 2015)? Can science help us better design virtual places (Johnson 2013, Moore 2005)? Do they explain how people navigate and orient themselves in virtual places (Cockburn 2004, Zimring and Dalton 2003)? The second part of Chapter Five discusses the importance of affordances and the confusion surrounding them.

Understanding game mechanics is of great relevance to virtual place designers, Chapter Six summarizes conflicting definitions of game mechanics and an explanation of different types of game mechanics suited to differing design purposes. This chapter also briefly discusses gamification.

Chapter Seven asks “Do Serious Gamers Learn from Place?” We could summarize this concern in the following three questions: do we know if learning has taken place, if it has taken place effectively, and if the knowledge that resulted from the learning is transferable? In contrast to James Gee (Gee 2003) I do not believe that all games are good games, and that all games are therefore good learning environments but in I will discuss procedural rhetoric and whether serious games help people engage with pedagogical objectives of humanities subjects.

Chapter Eight focuses on the relationship of culture to place. This chapter revisits definitions of culture, explores how culture can be communicated and understood in virtual places (transmissions), and determines whether there are specific requirements with virtual worlds. I also discuss the importance of roles, rituals and agents. In order to measure how closely culture can be observed, appreciated or understood through virtual environments, I have suggested that cultural presence be defined as the feeling of being in the presence of a similar or distinctly different cultural belief system (Champion 2011).

Chapter Nine explores evaluation methods (both traditional and recent), which address the complicated problem of understanding how people evaluate places, and whether this knowledge can be directly applied to the evaluation of virtual places. How do they get around the problem of the newness of virtual reality or the subjectivity/objectivity debates surrounding immersion and presence? Are they inspired by related but highly theoretical fields such as phenomenology, or has philosophy in general been left behind in the practical evaluation of place?

Chapter Ten discusses the emerging platforms and related tools that claim to help distribute, store and preserve virtual places Understanding the significance of the latest research is not enough, we also need to understand the significance and issues of the software, hardware and platforms that can be used for the design and experience of virtual places. There is an increasing trend to the more accessible, portable and component-based, does this mean we are on the brink of Convergent Cultures? In particular, I suggest that virtual heritage has focused more on communication than on preservation. We cannot afford to have our digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage or the sites it seeks to “preserve,” Otherwise all of our technological advances, creative interpretations, visualizations and efforts will have been in vain.

6 month Research Assistant position

Announcements, infrastructure, Linked Open Data, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , , , ,

I require a research assistant for an ARC LIEF project:

Fixed Term Research Assistant for Time Layered Culture Map Project (Web-based Mapping and AR/MR/VR technologies] 

  • Develop exemplars of cultural heritage data integrated with GIS data, on open source web platform Recogito [https://recogito.pelagios.org/] or equivalent.
  • Advise and develop related semantic web ontologies, features and supporting data.
  • Develop working examples of cultural heritage sites on this platform along with requested visualisation and annotation features (requested by supervisor)
  • Help integration with envisaged virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality platforms and related devices
  • Assist development of reports, tutorials, scholarly publications and grant applications based on the above including sourcing earlier papers and case studies
  • Store all examples and codes on accessible software repositories as requested by supervisor
  • Demonstrate, where required, the above GIS, mapping and semantic web examples.
  • Expertise required: knowledge of GIS, GeoJSON or similar, programming, familiarity with recent AR/VR technologies would be an advantage.
  • SALARY: G05.3  level.
  • The work is based at Curtin and can be shared but covers 6 months fulltime worl starting ASAP.

The job will be advertised soon but please contact erik dot champion at curtin edu au for any questions.

Spatial Humanities mini-symposium

Announcements, augmented reality, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, UNESCO Chair, virtual heritage, visualisation, workshop

caption, Dr. Juan Hiriart, PhD game project, Communicating the Past, Cologne, 2018.

Space, Place, People and Culture

This free mini-symposium of talks from leading UK NZ and Australian experts will explore recent developments and intriguing challenges in spatial and platial design involving aspects of both culture and technology.

10:00 Dr Stuart Dunn, Head of The Department of Digital Humanities King’s College London, UK

10:40 Dr. Juan Hiriart, Senior Lecturer in Interactive Media Art and Design, Salford University, Manchester, UK.

11:20 Mr Chris McDowall, Geographer, New Zealand, independent consultant.

12:00 Ms Nat Raisbeck-Brown, Experimental Spatial Scientist, Indigenous Ecological Knowledge Project, Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO, Perth.

12:20 Dr David McMeekin, Senior Research Fellow, Spatial Sciences, Curtin University and member of the Ancient Itineraries project.

12:40 Professor Erik Champion, UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage and Visualisation, Curtin University.

NB Some details may change.

VENUE Chemistry Building 500, “Exhibition Space” Theatre, Room 1102ABex, Manning Road entrance, Curtin University Bentley Campus, Perth, WA, 6102

DATE Friday 10:00-13:00, 21 February 2020

new OA Chapter for Communicating the Past book

Book, Digital Humanities, heritage, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,

Just added an early version of my chapter “Games People Dig: Are They Archaeological Experiences, Systems or Arguments?” in the Communicating the Past Book.

Every chapter is full open access. For book see https://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/10.5334/bch/

researchgate.net/publication/33 CC-BY 4.0.

One of the many but important dilemmas we may encounter in designing or critiquing games for archaeology (Champion 2015) is determining the why: why we should develop, buy, play, and teach specific games for the above disciplines. For archaeology, I propose there is a further important trifurcation: games aiming to convey an experience of archaeology (Hiriart 2018); games aiming to show how systems, methods, findings, and unknowns interact either to produce that experience; or games revealing what is unknown or debated (how knowledge is established or how knowledge is contested).

“Rethinking Virtual Places: Dwelling, Culture, Care” book to publishers

3D and game editors, augmented reality, Book, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , ,

I have sent this off to Indiana University Press Spatial Humanities Series. There have been 3 reviews, by 2 reviewers, and probably there will be a fourth (internal?) one. And i would love to know how to automatically convert Chicago 17 Author-Date reference style to Chicago 17 Footnotes (but I don’t think it exists). Hopefully it will be published early 2021.

Chapter summaries currently read as:

Chapter One explores the innovation and wilder inventions of early virtual environments and computer games. Have these developments, along with the increasing popularity of science fiction, promulgated fertile concepts of virtual places? I will suggest they have not.

Chapter Two explores the early development of virtual worlds, and game-worlds. Despite the hype of early virtual worlds, they, along with virtual museums (Huhtamo 2010), have seldom managed to capture and retain worthwhile visitor numbers (Styliani et al. 2009). What were the main features and attractions of virtual museums? Why have they gone in and out of fashion and have they actually been of any benefit to real-world museums? I will specifically look at how they use or change the use of space, and which if any place affordances were used in their design. I will then look briefly at the changing commercial and community virtual worlds that were developed, grew and fell during the last two decades.

Chapter Three discusses the representation-orientated and essentialist nature of major architectural theories. The second half of this chapter describes related design tools and asks a question of the training of architects for designing virtual places. If architects are not trained in usability and interaction design principles, how can they design engaging and profound interaction in these virtual worlds? Are traditional devices and technologies for designing, experiencing, and reflecting on place in danger of being lost in this digital era?

Chapter Four summarizes relevant philosophical exploration of real places and extrapolates them to virtual places and to notions of cyberspace. Related concepts discussed include the notion of VR as control, realism, authenticity and presence.

Chapter Five overviews a few key recent developments in neuroscience and how they may help our understanding of how people experience, store and recollect place-related experiences. Can these discoveries help our design of virtual places? Do philosophical explanations of memory and place (Ihde 2002, Tavanti and Lind 2001) reflect recent discoveries in scientific experiments (Farovik et al. 2015)? Can science help us better design virtual places (Johnson 2013, Moore 2005)? Do they explain how people navigate and orient themselves in virtual places (Cockburn 2004, Zimring and Dalton 2003)? The second part of Chapter Five discusses the importance of affordances and the confusion surrounding them.

Understanding game mechanics is of great relevance to virtual place designers, Chapter Six summarizes conflicting definitions of game mechanics and an explanation of different types of game mechanics suited to differing design purposes. This chapter also briefly discusses gamification.

Chapter Seven asks “Do Serious Gamers Learn from Place?” We could summarize this concern in the following three questions: do we know if learning has taken place, if it has taken place effectively, and if the knowledge that resulted from the learning is transferable? In contrast to James Gee (Gee 2003) I do not believe that all games are good games, and that all games are therefore good learning environments but in I will discuss procedural rhetoric and whether serious games help people engage with pedagogical objectives of humanities subjects.

Chapter Eight focuses on the relationship of culture to place. This chapter revisits definitions of culture, explores how culture can be communicated and understood in virtual places (transmissions), and determines whether there are specific requirements with virtual worlds. I also discuss the importance of roles, rituals and agents. In order to measure how closely culture can be observed, appreciated or understood through virtual environments, I have suggested that cultural presence be defined as the feeling of being in the presence of a similar or distinctly different cultural belief system (Champion 2011).

Chapter Nine explores evaluation methods (both traditional and recent), which address the complicated problem of understanding how people evaluate places, and whether this knowledge can be directly applied to the evaluation of virtual places. How do they get around the problem of the newness of virtual reality or the subjectivity/objectivity debates surrounding immersion and presence? Are they inspired by related but highly theoretical fields such as phenomenology, or has philosophy in general been left behind in the practical evaluation of place?

Chapter 10  discusses the emerging platforms and related tools that claim to help distribute, store and preserve virtual places Understanding the significance of the latest research is not enough, we also need to understand the significance and issues of the software, hardware and platforms that can be used for the design and experience of virtual places. There is an increasing trend to the more accessible, portable and component-based, does this mean we are on the brink of Convergent Cultures? In particular, I suggest that virtual heritage has focused more on communication than on preservation. We cannot afford to have our digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage or the sites it seeks to ‘preserve’ otherwise all of our technological advances, creative interpretations, visualizations and efforts will have been in vain.

Digital Heritage: Presenting Futures Past

augmented reality, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, HCI, heritage, Presentation, slides, UNESCO Chair, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , , ,

I gave a keynote Monday 9 December at Dhdownunder 2019, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia. The title was Digital Heritage: Presenting Futures Past

The slides can be viewed and downloaded in the nzerik directory at slideshare.

MAIN POINTS

  1. Digital heritage, Virtual Heritage, Extended Reality (XR): what are they?
  2. Can gaming, AR or MR provide insight to the past?
  3. OR: Are they a waste of money, expensive new technology?
  4. Could, for example, digital heritage pose a threat to culture?
  5. Ziauddin Sardar 1995: “Cyberspace is a giant step forward towards museumization of the world: where anything remotely different from Western culture will exist only in digital form.”
  6. Digital Heritage highlights and challenges (interactive + immersive examples).

To cut over 80 slides short, my answers to the initial questions are

  1. VR: “reality”: untapped potential, save the IxD!! (We should preserve and disseminate the interaction design and experience, academic papers are not the answer here).
  2. Gaming, AR, MR provides insight to the past-but learning more from designing.
  3. High-technology gets in the way.
  4. Digital Heritage poses a threat to culture, if we don’t clearly consider “culture”.
  5.  Sardar: Cyberspace a symptom not a cause, museumization a partially necessary evil, Western culture is a vague target.
  6. Digital Heritage communicates, seldom preserves, more end-user involvement required.

I suggest future research and potential solutions are

  • Flexible formats, agreed standards, sensory interfaces
  • New mechanics, cultural significance and care
  • Levels of resolution, access layers
  • 3D infrastructure links to data, research, community, XR
  • Encourage creative re-use by end-users

 

CFP: Playable Theory & Critical History in Archaeological Games (CAA 2020)

Announcements, archaeology, augmented reality, cfp, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,
Robert Houghton, Juan Hiriart and I are running a session at CAA 2020, 14-17 April, Oxford, on playable theory in archeological games. Come and join us with presentations and demonstrations of your games and game ideas! Extended deadline Thu 14 Nov. Submit proposals here: 2020.caaconference.org/call-for-paper

eTourism, Immersive GLAM and Virtual Heritage

augmented reality, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , , , , ,
“Local and international speakers talk about their research and synergies between heritage, tourism and GLAM via digital technology”
Free event at Curtin Friday 8 November 12.30-3.30 https://lnkd.in/g4nYst8

Add to Calendar

[Image care of Ian Brodie, HIDDEN and below supplied by Barbara Bollard]

Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums, meet eTourism and Digital Heritage!!

Speakers:

  1. Mr Alec Coles, OBE FRSA, CEO of Western Australian Museum
  2. Associate Professor Barbara Bollard (AUT NZ), will talk about her research on modelling environments such as 3D Antarctica huts via drone-based photogrammetry (see also ideolog article: up, up and away).
  3. Mr Ian Brodie, award winning photographer and film tourism author, will engage us with his AR projects as part of HIDDEN.
  4. Archaeologist and Senior Research Librarian, Alexandra Angeletaki, (NTNU Trondheim Norway), will talk about her use of immersive VR and related technology projects to bring historical texts and artefacts alive in the Gunnerus Library, Trondheim (founded 1768) via projects like MUBIL.
  5. Dr David McMeekin will explain the Getty Foundation funded Ancient Itineraries-Exploring Digital Art History project.
  6. Professor Ear Zow Digital will discuss exciting new futures between games, VR/ XR, and the GLAM sector.

Dr Christina Lee will MC the event.

New OA Book Chapter

Academic, archaeology, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

Champion, Erik. “From Historical Models to Virtual Heritage Simulations”. Chap. 4 In Der Modelle Tugend 2.0 Digitale 3d-Rekonstruktion Als Virtueller Raum Der Architekturhistorischen Forschung Computing in Art and Architecture, edited by Piotr Kuroczyński, Mieke Pfarr-Harfst and Sander Münster, 337-51. Heidelberg, Germany: arthistoricum.net, 2019. https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/catalog/book/515

eTourism, Immersive GLAM & Virtual Heritage

Conference, Digital Humanities, Presentation, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

Free event at Curtin University Friday 8 November 12.30-3 PM

Register at eventbrite. [Above image care of Alexandra Angeletaki NTNU Trondheim]

Local and international speakers talk about their research and synergies between heritage, tourism and GLAM via digital technology

Speakers:

  1. Mr Alec Coles, OBE FRSA, CEO of Western Australian Museum (tbc)
  2. Associate Professor Barbara Bollard (AUT NZ), will talk about her research on modelling environments such as 3D Antarctica huts via drone-based photogrammetry (see also ideolog article: up, up and away).
  3. Mr Ian Brodie, award winning photographer and film tourism author, will engage us with his AR projects as part of HIDDEN.
  4. Archaeologist and Senior Research Librarian, Alexandra Angeletaki, (NTNU Trondheim Norway), will talk about her use of immersive VR and related technology projects to bring historical texts and artefacts alive in the Gunnerus Library, Trondheim (founded 1768) via projects like MUBIL.
  5. Dr David McMeekin will explain the Getty Foundation funded Ancient Itineraries-Exploring Digital Art History project.
  6. Professor Ear Zow Digital will discuss exciting new futures between games, VR/ XR, and the GLAM sector.

Dr Christina Lee will MC the event.

nb below are photos of the venue (direct drive in from Manning Road, east of Waterford Plaza). Theatre “Exhibition Space” is on the ground floor directly ahead, after entering the door in the photo (to the left of the vertical Visitor Reception sign).

new article: A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage

augmented reality, Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , ,

A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage

by Mafkereseb Kassahun Bekele and Ear Zow Digital

Open access article in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 24 September 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2019.00091

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Mixed Reality (MxR) have become popular immersive reality technologies for cultural knowledge dissemination in Virtual Heritage (VH). These technologies have been utilized for enriching museums with a personalized visiting experience and digital content tailored to the historical and cultural context of the museums and heritage sites. Various interaction methods, such as sensor-based, device-based, tangible, collaborative, multimodal, and hybrid interaction methods, have also been employed by these immersive reality technologies to enable interaction with the virtual environments. However, the utilization of these technologies and interaction methods isn’t often supported by a guideline that can assist Cultural Heritage Professionals (CHP) to predetermine their relevance to attain the intended objectives of the VH applications. In this regard, our paper attempts to compare the existing immersive reality technologies and interaction methods against their potential to enhance cultural learning in VH applications. To objectify the comparison, three factors have been borrowed from existing scholarly arguments in the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain. These factors are the technology’s or the interaction method’s potential and/or demonstrated capability to: (1) establish a contextual relationship between users, virtual content, and cultural context, (2) allow collaboration between users, and (3) enable engagement with the cultural context in the virtual environments and the virtual environment itself. Following the comparison, we have also proposed a specific integration of collaborative and multimodal interaction methods into a Mixed Reality (MxR) scenario that can be applied to VH applications that aim at enhancing cultural learning in situ.

UNESCO CHAIR Projects (September 2016-June 2019)

Digital Humanities, heritage, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, workshop, , , ,

2019 Time-layered cultural map of Australia (Erik Champion and research assistant): 2018 ARC LIEF LE190100019  grant (hosted by Newcastle), $420,000 awarded GIS Programming and VR/MR mapping. URL: https://www.arc.gov.au/news-publications/media/research-highlights/australian-cultural-and-historical-data-be-linked-new-research-infrastructure

2019 GIS AR and mapping (Curtin Institute for Computation grant) (Erik Champion, David McMeekin, Hafizur Rahaman). Linked Open Data for 3D Heritage ARC grants Moviemap Geolocated Datasets and XR-Makerspace, Workflow and Web Portfolio Platform Development), $30,263.88.

2018 PhD project (Ikrom Nishanbaev): 3D/GIS Semantic Web-3D repository and Website-interface for cultural heritage objects and associated paradata.

2019 MCASI grant (Hafizur Rahaman, Michelle Johnston): AR-triggered language guide (mobile device to recognise 3D objects, play associated sounds and display associated text helping a user to understand a language) $2000.

2018 Erik Champion With Research Fellow (Dr Hafizur Rahaman). Open source photogrammetry to 3D digital models to augmented and mixed reality.

Mafkereseb Bekele (centre) winning a Young CAADRIA 2019 award (Hafizur Rahaman L and Marc Schnabel R).

2017 PhD project (Mafkereseb Bekele): Collaborative Learning with Microsoft HoloLens (sites: WA Museum-Xantho steam engine and Duyfken)-, can augment scale and create interactive map-based historical journeys as well. Featured in papers at CAADRIA (best student paper: Mafkereseb Bekele) and Computer Applications in Archaeology (Erik Champion).

2018 Summer intern (Corbin Yap). Latest Unreal game engine ported to 4 stereo and non-stereo displays of Curtin HIVE VR centre.

2017 Software Engineering project (with co-mentor Dr Karen Miller) gesture-based interface to Minecraft and other game engines.