The Acropolis on the Immersive Web

Abstract

We report here on an application of reality media (virtual and augmented reality) to digital cultural heritage. The particular challenge we address is: how to combine VR and AR to bridge the gap between the center (the museum housing cultural artifacts) and periphery (the heritage site where the artifacts were found) while at the same time attending to, even enhancing, the aura of both artifacts and sites? Our proposed solution is to implement the cultural heritage technique known as situated simulation (sitsim) in combination with a social virtual environment called Hubs. Our case study is a sitsim of the Acropolis in Athens, which can function on location and remotely and offers real-time conferencing capabilities for its participants.