Virtual, augmented and mixed reality can be very useful as tools for better understanding the objects on display. They provide digital information without interfering with the physical presentation.
Virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality are a type of interactive of great potential when it comes to developing your museographic proposal.
The resources based on virtual reality and augmented reality are very powerful solutions They can be very useful as tools to help better understand the objects on display, providing digital information without interfering with the physical presentation.
Virtual reality is the one that is created in a parallel way, in the digital world.
Augmented reality is that which, starting from physical reality, inserts digital elements with which to interact.
Mixed reality consists of the creation of a virtual reality in which real objects or people are inserted. This effect is achieved by recording the real elements against a green or chromatic background. Into which the digital elements will be integrated.
In any of the three cases, these are very effective resources that facilitate the integration of the visitor into the narrative. This will be an experience difficult to forget.
These are very effective resources
In the field of museums, these techniques can be very useful and educational. The recreation of historical events, wars, archaeological reconstructions, scientific explanations, painting techniques and a host of applications create a great appeal and interactive potential.
Augmented reality has the great advantage of being able to be played on users’ devices (mobile phones or tablets), allowing a greater number of visitors to experience it.
Virtual and mixed reality require the provision of a limited number of devices. The public will suffer the consequent wait to be able to enjoy the experience. In addition the foreseeable breakdowns of glasses or helmets that go from hand to hand is another negative point.
However, the evolution of technology allows the use of virtual technology on mobile devices, which will facilitate its use by a greater number of users in a museum environment.
The visitor is involved in this world that we have created and lives it in first person, as if it were transplanted to another reality, as if it were a dream, an experience, with a great emotional impact.
But we must avoid falling into the purely recreational aspect and differentiate from the resources that we would find in an entertainment park.
The museum has a duty to teach informally and its message should be interesting, an educational experience, but at the same time a recreational one, as it fulfills its social function.
An educational but at the same time entertaining experience
The aim of the museum is to transmit knowledge, using these tools or others with a clear purpose of conveying cultural content, but they are merely instruments, not an aim in themselves.
We must take into account the need to provide ways out for those users who, seeing themselves immersed in a virtual reality, are upset or disoriented and wish to get out.
Above all, they must be one more piece to fit into a global discourse. It is developed throughout the visit, explaining something that makes sense and also help to go deeper into some aspect. It finds its place in relation to the rest of the exhibition elements.
The visitor, in a more or less conscious way, will perceive that what goes around and surrounds him are parts of a whole, like pieces of a puzzle. Therefore they are elements that make it easier for him to understand and assimilate concepts and extract his own conclusions.
The audience will finally have the feeling that everything made sense during the visit. Nothing will be unnecessary.
No matter how attractive the technological resources are, they must above all play a role and therefore not serve as mere advertising claims.
These technologies open a wide field of possibilities as powerful playful and educational tools, with the only limit of imagination.
A naval battle, a storm on a galleon, parachuting, walking on the moon, navigating in a submarine, rebuilding the Parthenon or the Coliseum, sailing down the Nile in ancient Egypt.
The potential scenarios are countless.