(The Eurographics Association, 2014) McCaffery, John; Miller, Alan; Oliver, Iaina; Reinhard Klein and Pedro Santos
This paper investigates the creation of historic scenes through engagement with community archaeology and historical investigation. The approach presented here enables both tangible and intangible culture to be explored through the proxy of an avatar controlled by a user. This gives rise to an engaging and interactive experience. Through utilising and developing a flexible open source software infrastructure the historic scenes may be deployed in a range of of scenarios: over the Internet, in mobile multi user exhibitions suitable for public events, as an immersive museum installation and through on site cross reality exploration. The use of commodity hardware, open source and open standards underpins a collaborative creative process that enables the deployment of installations which articulate interpretations relevant to the locality. This in turn encourages a sense of ownership and dynamic engagement with cultural heritage. A measurement study of the quality of experience delivered by virtual world systems reveals the client as the critical system component. System performance and the quality of presentation measurements provide system insights which enable user experience to be improved.