Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) became, in the last few years, an important pillar for promoting cultural heritage (CH) through serious games or virtual guided tours. A lot of museums, institutes, and galleries tend to integrate new technologies like VR for promotion purposes. The major objective of this research is to analyze the Activator project through three immersive scenarios, developed in collaboration with the Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) and the “Noesis” Science Center and Technology Museum, and deal with three different regions of Ancient Greece. This study introduces the serious games VR platform Activator, whose purpose is to provide a realistic Query ID="Q2" Text="Article title: Kindly provide German article." VR experience coupled with a motion platform, to highlight a few significant moments of the ancient Greek civilization and let the user interact with key objects through a set of serious games in virtual environments. In particular, three immersive educational scenarios are implemented in the form of serious games, including the Siege of Rhodes, the Antikythera Wreck, and the First Settlement of Europe, which represents the volcanic eruption at Thera (Santorini). In addition to the implementation details and technologies utilized, the paper presents some preliminary evaluation results with real users, during its initial pilot phase that is currently carried out at the premises of the Noesis Science Center & Technology Museum, in Thessaloniki, Greece. The Activator platform, which has been developed in the context of a collaborative Greek national research project, will be available for public use after the end of the project.
Zusammenfassung
Virtual Reality (VR) hat sich in den letzten Jahren zu einer wichtigen Säule für die Förderung des Kulturerbes (CH) durch Serious Games oder virtuelle Führungen entwickelt. Viele Museen, Institute und Galerien neigen dazu, neue Technologien wie VR zu Werbezwecken zu integrieren. Das Hauptziel dieser Forschung besteht darin, das Activator-Projekt anhand von drei immersiven Szenarien zu analysieren, die in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Zentrum für Forschung und Technologie Hellas (CERTH) und dem Wissenschaftszentrum und Technologiemuseum „Noesis“ entwickelt wurden und sich mit drei verschiedenen Regionen des antiken Griechenlands befassen. In dieser Studie wird die Serious-Games-VR-Plattform Activator vorgestellt, deren Zweck darin besteht, ein realistisches VR-Erlebnis in Verbindung mit einer Bewegungsplattform bereitzustellen, um einige bedeutende Momente der antiken griechischen Zivilisation hervorzuheben und dem Benutzer die Interaktion mit Schlüsselobjekten durch eine Reihe von Serious-Games in virtuellen Umgebungen zu ermöglichen. Insbesondere werden drei immersive Lernszenarien in Form von Serious Games umgesetzt, darunter die Belagerung von Rhodos, das Wrack von Antikythera und die erste Zivilisation Europas, die den Vulkanausbruch bei Thera (Santorini) darstellt. Zusätzlich zu den Implementierungsdetails und verwendeten Technologien präsentiert das Papier einige vorläufige Evaluierungsergebnisse mit echten Benutzern während der ersten Pilotphase, die derzeit in den Räumlichkeiten des Noesis Science Center & Technology Museum in Thessaloniki, Griechenland, durchgeführt wird. Die Activator-Plattform, die im Rahmen eines gemeinsamen griechischen nationalen Forschungsprojekts entwickelt wurde, wird nach Projektende für die öffentliche Nutzung verfügbar sein.
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Funding
Work presented in this paper was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (call RESEARCH–CREATE–INNOVATE) under contract no. Τ1EDK-03735 (project Activator).
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All authors agreed on the content of the study. VT, PA, TM, SA, KD, TA, TD and KA collected all the data for analysis. KD agreed on the methodology. VT, PA, TM, SA, KD, TA, TD and KA completed the analysis based on agreed steps. Results and conclusions are discussed and written together. The author read and approved the final manuscript.
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Varelas, T., Pentefountas, A., Tsimpoura, M. et al. Activator: An Immersive Virtual Reality Serious Game Platform for Highlighting Ancient Greek Civilization. KN J. Cartogr. Geogr. Inf. 73, 277–288 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42489-023-00148-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42489-023-00148-4