This AR experience is part of “Launchpad: Apollo 11 Promises Kept“, a new 10,000 sq. ft. exhibition paying tribute to the past, present and future of space exploration. The exhibition combines the Museum’s significant collection of Apollo-era artifacts with cutting-edge interactive experiences to create an immersive and exciting cosmic journey.

Photo by Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

What is unique about AR Composer is that digital objects keep their original positions, creating persistent AR experiences shareable across several devices.

To position digital artefacts accurately, AR Composer comes with an easy-to-use 6-DOF (Degrees Of Freedom) Editor. 3D objects can be moved from left to right, up and down, forwards and backwards, including three rotation options. With this unique feature, objects can be placed accurately in any space, in no time.

Discover how to try AR Composer at the end of this post.

AR Composer also comes with 2 modes: Creator and Visitor mode. In Creator mode, the museum team can create as many persistent scenes as they want, placing and anchoring their objects wherever they like in the physical space. When this process is finished, the museum simply has to lock the scenes in Visitor mode to make them available on any device running AR Composer. Visitors can then use the devices provided by the venue or their personal device to enjoy the content.

Another perk of AR Composer is that there is no limit to the number of 3D assets that can be uploaded, which gives digital and education teams at museums the opportunity to design scenes with the creativity of a theatrical production. Objects can be animated, interactive and can display data to showcase digital storytelling or contextual information.

There are a number of creative ways to use the app. Examples include:

• Sharing works that are missing from a collection, whether they are in another museum, being restored, or on loan.
• Rebuilding archeological monuments – for example, making an entire temple appear where only an ancient column remains.
• Comparing works to previous versions, or to the artist’s preliminary sketches.
• Taking complex mechanisms apart and then putting them back together to see how they work. Examples include machines, the human body, the solar system, etc.
• Making digital characters move around in front of the visitor.
• Recreating the decor and atmosphere of an entire room in real size, by superimposing its former or future state on top of its current reality.
• Adding flesh and skin to the skeletons of extinct species, e.g. dinosaurs.
• Creating digital collaborative artwork.
• Creating a portal to access a virtual world.
• Creating a digital character guide to provide specialized tours for children, teens or other visitor groups.

AR Composer saves museums from having to build their own customized application and CMS (Content Management System) from scratch. That way, the majority of the budget can be allocated to creating content and designing compelling visitor experiences.

Try AR Composer now! We are offering AR Composer to museums and heritage sites in private Beta, with several demo assets included. If you are interested, please contact us.

What is occlusion?

Occlusion problems occur because virtual objects will always appear in front of the real world on the screen. For example, imagine that a virtual statue is placed in a gallery. If a person is standing behind the statue, the experience works because the virtual object appears in front of the person.

However, if the person is standing between the device and the virtual statue, the immersion is broken because the statue will cover the person on the screen.

Similarly, adding a virtual element inside a real object (such as adding a virtual apple inside a real bowl) can cause occlusion issues. The images below illustrate how the AR illusion works only for some angles. Again, the virtual object will always go in front of the real one.

So how can we solve occlusion problems?

Many occlusion problems for AR experiences in museums can be anticipated and avoided early on through design and forethought. Possible solutions to prevent occlusion issues include:

Create a designated space. A helpful way to control occlusion issues can be to contain where an AR experience will take place. For example, in the “Sites Eternels“ (Eternal Sites) application at the Grand Palais in Paris, the devices were physically tethered to a large table on which the AR experience appeared. This limited what could physically get between the device’s cameras and the table.

Another solution could be to physically mark the area where the AR experience will take place, so that other visitors know not to get in the way. Whether or not a museum employs this solution depends on the available space and whether the exhibition is temporary or permanent.

Utilize strategic positioning. The placement of virtual objects can help prevent occlusion problems, as some positions are more viable than others. For example, in the application we developed for the National Museum of Singapore, a 42-foot-long whale skeleton was positioned just under a high ceiling, well above visitors. In this case, because visitors point their devices up at the ceiling, the positioning of the whale ensures that there is nothing to cause occlusion issues.

Position your visitors in a specific place. In a recent project, we placed a virtual mark on the floor to encourage users to stand in a specific position before starting the experience. This way, we made sure nothing would get between the user and the AR scene.

Add masking effects. Environmental effects, such as clouds or mist, can help mask the real world elements that could cause occlusion problems.
For example, in another recent project, we animated a virtual spacecraft that lands on the surface of an asteroid. This experience took place in a small, crowded gallery, which caused occlusion issues. We added environmental effects to the virtual scene, and it helped to foster the sense of immersion in the experience.

Integrate real-world elements in the virtual world. In many cases, we can identify something called “planned occlusion”. For example, GuidiGO’s wayfinding capabilities display virtual blue dots on the floor that lead visitors to points of interest. In the case in the photo below, when the blue dots indicate to turn left, the rest of the path is not displayed until the visitor is in the doorway. This is possible because we integrate the pre-identified obstacles (walls, cases, etc) in our algorithm. The rendering happens in real-time and takes into account the physical world before displaying a digital object.

Position “occlusion masks”. Similarly, for a recent project, we wanted to display a virtual object along the length of a gallery wall. However, the room was filled with furniture that got between the visitor’s device and the wall, making the virtual object appear fake.
To work around this constraint, our programming team created “occlusion masks”. These were virtual 3D objects that were the exact same size and shape as the real-world objects, placed over the furniture using our AR Composer tool. In this way, we made it possible for the furniture to appear in front of the main virtual object.

Delineate museums into different sections. We can also separate museum spaces into unique galleries, so that when visitors are in a specific gallery, they only see the virtual objects on display in that gallery. This avoids the artworks of the galleries nearby being visible “through the walls” due to occlusion, as virtual objects will always appear in front of real objects on the screen. To read more about a project where we used this technique, check out our article about our work with the Clyfford Still Museum here.

Employ real-time programming solutions. Sometimes, occlusion problems cannot be avoided or planned for, such as visitors walking around inside the museum. There are programming solutions to these occlusion issues, in which the physical environment is reconstructed in real-time using device’s sensors and cameras to integrate the real world inside the virtual world.
The main downside of this option is that it requires a lot of processing power, however, this will certainly become a non-issue in the future.

Every AR experience requires custom solutions to specific occlusion problems. And the development of new sensors and more powerful devices will help facilitate new ways to work around these obstacles in the near future. Through creativity in design and programming, it is possible to find innovative solutions to make augmented reality even more real.

The use of augmented reality paintings in this exhibition is a creative solution to the fact that most of the selected virtual artworks would have been difficult, if not impossible, to borrow. Works by da Vinci and de Kooning are thus accessible in the galleries, as digital facsimiles.

Unlike traditional digital tours, this augmented reality experience doesn’t provide interpretation material about the artworks on display. Rather, the digital content is an integral part of the exhibition itself. The augmented reality assets become museum objects in their own right.

The Visitor Experience

The digital aspect of the exhibition experience is integrated simply and effectively into the visit. Prior to entering the galleries, visitors are equipped with Lenovo Phab 2 Pro devices. As they walk through the exhibition, which is spread out over the nine galleries of the Museum, they are notified about the presence of virtual artworks by a message on their devices.

Visitors are free to explore the galleries, finding the virtual artworks and comparing them to the physical ones. What is so unique about this experience is that the physical setting was designed with the digital components in mind right from the get go: there are blank spaces on the gallery walls with a text that lets visitors know that virtual works will appear when they look through their tablets. These walls are only populated when the virtual artworks are displayed in AR in real size. No markers, iBeacons, or WIFI are needed as the devices recognize the space using Google’s VPS (Visual Positioning Service) announced at Google I/O in May.

The high resolution digital reproductions allow visitors to explore the virtual paintings, discovering the vibrant details of texture and color, as if the paintings were physically in the gallery. Visitors can get extremely close to these virtual works (closer than would be allowed with real paintings), examining Van Gogh’s bold brushstrokes or Rauschenberg’s monochromatic topographies.

How the AR Experience Was Created

The creation of the digital component of the experience involved a collaboration between the Museum and GuidiGO to create high resolution 3D models of different paintings to be virtually hung on the gallery walls.

Google’s augmented reality team came to set up the VPS (Visual Positioning Service) by mapping the galleries. This allows the devices to recognize where they are in the museum space, which makes possible the placement and display of virtual objects. The Clyfford Still Museum is among the first 10 museums in the world to have embraced VPS technology to enable accurately prepositioned, life-size AR experiences.

After this step, GuidiGO’s team came on-site to place the virtual paintings on the walls using GuidiGO’s AR Composer, an application we developed to manipulate 3D objects and place them in mapped spaces. In the Clyfford Still Museum, this meant hanging the virtual paintings so they fit perfectly with the real artworks on the walls.

GuidiGO’s AR Composer was also used to delineate the museum space into unique sections. This step made it so that when visitors are in a gallery, they only see the artworks on display in that gallery. This avoids the artworks of the galleries nearby being visible “through the walls” due to the occlusion effect, as virtual objects will always appear in front of real objects on the screen.

The result is a seamless experience where visitors are engaged in a new kind of visit in which real and virtual complement each other. AR becomes social when groups of visitors see the same thing at the same time, sparking interesting dialogues and shared ‘wow’ moments.

The exhibition “Still & Art” is generously supported in part by Daniel Benel and Lena Fishman. Additional support is provided by U.S. Bank and the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). The augmented reality experience is made possible at the Clyfford Still Museum through a partnership with Google and media company RYOT.

© Featured Image courtesy Clyfford Still Museum

Lumin content was created by the DIA’s interpretive team leveraging GuidiGO’s new augmented reality platform, AR Composer, built specifically for Tango. This allows the user to interact with real size 3D animations, information and display directions in the visitor’s field of view.

Lumin connects visitors with artworks in a global context beyond the DIA,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA director. “Augmented reality allows the user to see the unseen, imagine art in its original setting and understand how objects were used and experienced in people’s everyday lives. It is an exciting way to incorporate the latest technology into the visitor experience.

Visitors will hold a Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the first Tango enabled phone, to explore different works of art. The initial phase of the project includes seven tour stops with a variety of AR experiences, including:

A Mummy, from Ancient Egypt

Mummies give us insights into ancient burial rituals. With the app’s AR overlay, you can peer beneath the sarcophagus and even the mummies’ bandages to explore an X-ray-like view of the skeleton.

The Ishtar Gate, from Ancient Babylonia

The Ishtar Gate once stood six stories high. Now, with the power of Tango’s motion tracking technology, you can explore the gate at scale, walk under its arch, and see where the Detroit Institute of Art’s 3×4-foot mosaic piece fits into this architectural wonder.

A limestone Relief, from Mesopotamia

The limestone relief was originally painted with vibrant colors, which have long since faded. By looking through your Tango enable device, you can tap on the relief to see what it would have looked like when it was first created thousands of years ago.

A Cylinder Seal, from Mesopotamia

Small round cylinder seals were once used to make impressions on clay for items like jewelry and signatures for administrative purposes. Now, instead of just seeing the seals in a case, you can roll the seals in AR to see the written characters and figurative scenes that they create.

WANT TO SEE LUMIN IN ACTION? CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEOS.

This is just the beginning of how you’ll be able to use Tango in museums to see more, hear more and learn more – in other words, to experience museums around the world in a whole new way.

“Lumin” in the Press:

• Hyperallergic: More Screens, More Knowledge: Testing the Detroit Institute of Arts’ New Augmented Reality App >>
• Fortune: Google Wants To Give Museum Visitors A Pokémon Go-Like Experience >>
• Venture Beat: Google opens Tango augmented reality platform to museums, starting with Detroit Institute of Arts >>
• The News Herald: Augmented reality adds dimension to art at DIA >>
• The Economist: Futurism: museums and technology >>
• Geek: Detroit Institute of Arts Enriches Museum Experience with Google Tango >>
• Tom’s Hardware: Google’s Project Tango Heads To The Detroit Institute Of Arts >>
• CNET: Google’s project Tango AR lets museum visitors delve deeper >>
• Tech Crunch: A Detroit art museum is leveraging Google Tango for an AR history lesson >>

GuidiGO AR Composer opens up incredible new opportunities for museums and cultural sites, as they can now design their own AR experiences in just a few simple steps, and make them available on site or for remote use by schools and other educational institutions.

Unlike virtual reality, Augmented Reality is not designed to immerse you in an entirely different environment” says GuidiGO CEO David Lerman, “AR integrates virtual elements into the real environment, and allows you to interact with them as you move around. You can physically feel the presence of AR objects, particularly when they appear in real size. The applications for Augmented Reality are actually quite different from virtual reality, but no less fascinating and engaging for users. Just look at the excitement around Pokémon GO!

This is a great opportunity to reach an even wider audience, including the digital generation, who are looking for new experiences. AR Composer is also an extraordinary educational tool capable of engaging different types of visitors as they explore permanent collections or temporary exhibitions.

GuidiGO AR Composer: How does it work?

GuidiGO AR Composer makes it possible to create experiences in augmented reality using virtual components. The Tango tablet works as a viewfinder to position virtual objects on the ground or anywhere else, with no need for markers or signals of any kind. The settings and location of the virtual objects are saved as soon as they are placed. They are then visible to visitors just like any real object.

A virtual 3D object can be static, animated, or interactive. It can be a character, an entire scene, a sound, or a visual hotspot, depending on the experience created by the museum.

GuidiGO AR Composer makes full use of Tango capabilities, including motion tracking, which enables virtual objects to behave as if they were real. For example, virtual objects increase in size as you approach them, and you can walk around them to get a closer look from any angle. It is also possible to interact with them, as you can see in this video where a dinosaur roars when the visitor approaches.

Ready-to-Go AR Plugins

Just like GuidiGO Studio, AR Composer is extremely user-friendly and doesn’t require special skills or training. Using presets or custom plugins, museums and cultural sites can quickly create a variety of experiences in which their visitors will see the real and virtual blend together seamlessly. For example, museums will be able to:

• Geolocate and guide visitors using a virtual path that appears at their feet:
  
• Leave comments about a place, or work of art, using AR hotspots:
  
• Create a Pokémon GO-style treasure hunt, inviting visitors to explore and collect virtual objects they find in the galleries:
  
• Share works that are missing from the collection, whether they are on reserve, being restored, or on loan… or simply too fragile or too large to be displayed in public,
• Place a work in its original context – for example, making an entire temple appear where only an ancient column remains,
• Compare a work to its previous version, or to the artist’s preliminary sketches,
• Take complex mechanisms apart and put them back together again to see how things work, whether it’s a machine, a process, the human body, the solar system, etc.
• Make virtual characters move around in front of the visitor,
• Recreate the décor and atmosphere of an entire room by superimposing its former or future state on top of its current reality:
  

And any other applications imaginable…

First Tango Smartphones Available

The Phab2 Pro, the first smartphone to feature Tango technology, is available at the Lenovo shop.

This new type of smartphone is the first step in a major technological breakthrough. Tango makes it finally possible to create AR experiences without using markers or any kind of infrastructure. In other words, there’s finally a mobile device that sees like we do.

The 3D Explosion

In recent years, 3D image production has become much more accessible. Techniques like photogrammetry in which an object is photographed from many different angles so it can then be reproduced in 3D, used to require complex and costly equipment. Today, you can create a 3D model of an object or even an entire scene using nothing but your smartphone.

Similarly, the diffusion of 3D models took a giant leap forward with the arrival of the WebGL standard, which makes it possible to display 3D images in any web browser. This is where Sketchfab comes into play. In only four years’ time, the platform has become the leader in publishing and sharing 3D models, with close to a million models shared by its members.

Sketchfab and GuidiGO: a Natural Synergy

Though Sketchfab initially appealed to designers wishing to share their creations, their community has expanded over the years to include a variety of museums. Over 350 museums and cultural sites all over the world are now using Sketchfab, including the famous British Museum, and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels – who published no less than 355 models alone. Sketchfab now boasts a collection that would be the envy of a number of institutions the world over.

It soon became obvious that Sketchfab and GuidiGO, the leading storytelling platform with its 5,000 commented cultural sites and works, would be a perfect match. It is no surprise, then, that the 3D works on Sketchfab now interface with GuidiGO’s tour-creating tools.

GuidiGO now natively supports Sketchfab 3D embeds and lets you add 3D and VR illustrations to your stories.

Tremendous potential for GuidiGO users

This incredible functionality is available to anyone who creates a tour on GuidiGO. It is especially useful when accessing tours remotely, or when planning a visit. When it is impossible to make a trip to a cultural site in person, you can still enjoy the works on display and the cultural space itself.

For a few months now, the new GuidiGO web app has featured street views and 360° panoramas,” explains Corine Barbazanges, Head of Marketing at GuidiGO. “But 3D models open the way to even more possibilities. Our users are going to be able to create amazing tours based around a theme, rather than on the exploration of one specific site. They can even create their ideal collection by bringing together works from different museums with absolutely no geographic constraints.

This is the idea behind the 3D Imaginary Tour created by GuidiGO as a demo. In this tour, you will hear the story of the Nefertiti bust and the Roman Colosseum. As you listen, you can look at every detail and rotate the objects to see them from multiple angles. You can also learn about Protoceratops, a dinosaur that you can spin around in 3D as it walks across your screen.

Now, museums can offer virtual tours to anyone unable to visit in person—particularly schools with limited means. A teacher could also create a tour based on a thematic selection of works and then use it as part of their curriculum—they could even invite students to create their own tours as a class project. Art lovers might also create a gallery of their favorite works and enrich them with personal commentary.

Of course, a virtual tour can never replace an on-site visit. As GuidiGO CEO David Lerman is well aware:

There is nothing like the feeling you get from real contact with a work or space. But the fact is, no one has the means to visit every museum in the world. That’s why art books and documentaries exist. So why not have virtual tours as well? Augmented with Sketchfab resources, the GuidiGO web app makes it possible to view works in 3D and in great detail; it also enriches the experience with audio commentary and visual references. In my opinion, this is one of the best remote visitor experiences ever created so far.

The experience is sure to appeal to museums and culture lovers; especially since opening an account is free on both Sketchfab and GuidiGO.

What are you waiting for?

Would you like to create a tour of ancient Egyptian artifacts, animal sculptures throughout the ages, or the collections at the British Museum? It couldn’t be more simple.

Start by creating your tour in GuidiGO Studio. Decide which stops you want to add, then enrich them with text, audio and video content. If you’d like to add 3D content to a stop in your tour, simply copy the URL of the model from Sketchfab then paste it in your stop, in GuidiGO Studio:

Finally, publish your tour in just one click. A few minutes later, it will be accessible from any web browser.

Note: Sketchfab 3D models are not yet available in the GuidiGO mobile apps.

An instant mobile experience

The new GuidiGO web interface is entirely responsive and gives you immediate access to tours on any mobile device, no matter what the screen size. All the users have to do is open their web browser when they arrive on site to access the tour. There’s no longer any need to install an app. Twice as fast as the former version, tours now load almost instantaneously. The new version is just as user-friendly as the native GuidiGO app, and the visitor experience is still optimized, no matter what mobile device or web browser is used.

The new web app makes accessing tours much faster and easier. Each stop of the tour can even be triggered with a QR code or BLE beacon. However, unlike the native GuidiGO app which makes it possible to access tours offline, the user does need an active internet connection for it to work. (The native app also includes in-app games and purchase options soon to be available in the web app.)

Street View Tours

Tours are now accessible directly via a web browser. This is a game-changer because it makes tours accessible remotely for those who are unable to visit sites in person, whether for financial, geographic, or physical reasons. It also makes it possible to preview a location before visiting it, or go on a virtual field trip in which an entire class can explore cultural and heritage sites from the other side of the world – like here, in Rome:

or at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California:

If the tour takes place outside, or inside a building already mapped by Google, the GuidiGO interface automatically synchronizes with Google Street View data. For other tours, the author simply needs to associate a 2:1 image with each stop, using GuidiGO Studio when building the tour.

The angle and zoom can also be adjusted so the user can look in the right direction as they proceed.

A Look at the Updates

Here is a preview of the main features of our new web interface:

• The tour map is now at the heart of the experience, and is always permanently running in the background.
• The list of stops is optimized: the user can now view more stops at a time without having to scroll.



• One key element of the new web app is the card grouping together all content related to each stop of the tour: the address, texts, images, audio, videos, and panoramic views. All accessible in one click:



• The display has been optimized to allow more space for the images.



• Navigating between stops is now more user-friendly and permanently accessible.



• Users can find their geolocation using any device.
• In Street View mode, the location of each stop is indicated with a pointer (as in the mobile versions of GuidiGO).



• It is now possible to share published tours in Private mode with people of your choosing.

Explore your own tours right away in Street View mode or in the Web App

Can’t wait to see your own tours using the new GuidiGO web interface? It couldn’t be more simple:

• On guidigo.com: With the Start button on your tour page – if the tour is public.



• In GuidiGO Studio: By clicking on the URL for your tour in the Publish tab. The URL appears as soon as you publish the tour, whether it is in Public or Private mode.

I caught myself wondering what the magic was about parks that made children never want to leave…and why they don’t tend to feel the same way when we take them to the museum.

The answer might seem obvious: at the park, children can play. But what is the psychology behind why they often prefer a fun excursion to the park over a visit to the museum? In my opinion, it all comes down to four key components:

Interaction, Emotion, Accomplishment, Emulation

These are the components that come into play when a child seeks the thrill of going down a slide, or pushes to come in first, or tries to climb higher than they have before. These also come into play when a child encounters a new environment, builds something with friends, or challenges them. All of these activities present the opportunity for children to feel joy and pride, and receive praise from their parents.

Is it possible to activate these motivators at the museum?

What can we do to make a visit to the museum just as exciting for our children as an afternoon at the park? A museum isn’t a playground; it doesn’t provide quite the same freedoms that a park or garden does. However, some museums do offer engaging and thrilling experiences for children – experiences that address the psychological motivators mentioned above.

But things can get messy when you decide to visit a museum with your family on a whim. As a parent, I’ve often been disappointed by the lack of “on demand” solutions for capturing a child’s attention and helping them to have fun in cultural environments. While science museums tend to be very imaginative when it comes to engaging young visitors, the same can’t be said for all museums. In most cases, it’s best to plan your visit in advance to make sure appropriate activities are available for children. Otherwise, you may be left to your own devices on subjects you may not necessarily be familiar with.

Digital devices to the rescue?

This is where digital tools on tablets and mobile phones come in handy. They provide an “on demand” solution with great possibilities, they offer content that can be adapted to many audiences depending on age level, skills and interests.

Digital tools provide quick solutions that are likely to activate all four motivators we’ve discussed above — turning museum visits into an experience your child will want to do again and again, and giving parents tools they’ll be excited to talk about with their friends. Here are a few examples:

INTERACTIONS

This is, of course, where the digital tablet comes in. A tablet should never be the focal point of the experience, but rather, a starting point. It should foster conversation between you and your child and facilitate interaction with the works of art and other artifacts on display. This is why digital games that combine storytelling and puzzles are the perfect tool for facilitating that interaction — they engage children and make them active participants in the cultural experience.

EMOTIONS

Digital tools can intensify the emotions children feel when they see a work of art or visit a heritage site. First of all, when they listen to a story, they are transported into the world of the imagination. In order for this to happen, you need a passionate narrator who not only tells the story, but brings the characters to life.

Digital tools offer infinite possibilities that are both fun and exciting for your child. For example, with augmented reality, your child could meet a historical character, dress a friend in a medieval costume, or pet a dinosaur… and of course, take photos to capture all the fun! Your child could also have a memorable cultural experience in virtual reality, which has been shown to have a particular emotional impact (see our article on VR here).

In short, digital tools bring you the best of new immersive technologies that can transport your child straight into another time and place.

ACCOMPLISHMENT

A digital visit can also foster a sense of accomplishment in several different ways. First, they provide rewards when the children earn points, collect objects, or look for virtual clues. Games also encourage them to keep progressing, for example, when they make it to the next step in a game because they were able to complete a challenge.

Gaining knowledge also contributes to that sense of accomplishment. When children learn something from a story, a quiz, or funny anecdote, they feel like they’re the only one who knows this special information, and they feel proud of what they know.

Another way to activate this motivator is to encourage creativity by asking the child to solve a complicated puzzle or complete an artistic challenge.

EMULATION

Games should be as varied as possible. That way they present a variety of challenges based on listening and observation (for example: searching for clues in the décor or in a work of art), questions that require careful reflection, or fun tasks (like taking a selfie posing like a character in a painting).
Games should also allow the child to accumulate points and/or objects to stimulate a healthy sense of competition. Children can then share their scores with friends.

These four motivators also have a biological basis

This empirical approach also has a more scientific explanation. Each of the motivators mentioned above also release different hormones that contribute to feelings of joy and happiness: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins.

• Dopamine produces the feeling of satisfaction we get when we earn a reward, meet an objective, or experience a good surprise.
• Serotonin triggers the feeling of self-esteem and self-confidence. It is released when a child feels proud.
• Oxytocin is released during social interactions; it produces feelings of attachment, connection, and sharing with others.
• Endorphins produce feelings of well-being, related to laughter.

Besides their emotional virtues, these hormones also facilitate memorization. Dopamine, for example, strengthens episodic memory, which allows us to relive scenes from the past.

When to start?

Today’s children are immersed in an environment that is both digital and physical. They see technology as a means to foster interpersonal relations and connect with both the reality and fiction of others’ lives.

When digital tools are used intelligently, they help museums and heritage sites to create strong ties with young visitors, allowing them to discover and enjoy the many treasures these sites have to offer.

Whether digital tools should be used in museums and heritage sites is no longer a question. The question for museums to answer is “How can we adapt digital tools to the particular needs of each museum and heritage site?”

Since 2013, however, significant advances have been made. Innovators such as Oculus, and more recently Google, with “Cardboard”, are about to make virtual reality a household name—and this time for good, or so it seems.

There’s a simple explanation for this: virtual reality technology is now more accessible because prices have literally plummeted. With the arrival of Google Cardboard, a cardboard box that costs less than $10 is all it takes to transform any smartphone into a virtual reality device. And if you’re feeling especially luxurious, you can purchase a plastic version for only $60 :)

Accessible technologies will completely transform the way Virtual Reality is used

Simple, but no less remarkable, the little magic box was born in Google’s Paris offices, thanks to two engineers: David Coz and Damien Henry. Inspired by the Durovis Dive headset, the box took center stage in June 2014 at Google’s annual I/O developers conference. Since then, Google Cardboard apps crossed 15 million downloads. Last month, the New York Times sent a million Cardboards to its subscribers, giving them access to exclusive content. This is just the beginning of the trend, and it promises to be phenomenal.

We are entering an era in which not only visualization technologies like Cardboard will become prolific, but we will also see an increase in software and hardware like Jump, Giroptic or even the Cardboard Camera application, which simplify the creation of VR enabled content. Such technologies will completely transform the way virtual reality is used, much like smartphones revolutionized the way we use photo and video.

A fantastic tool for teleporting a visitor… during his or her visit!

Here at GuidiGO, we’ve been looking into these technologies for over a year. The idea was to explore different uses for virtual reality that would enrich the experience of visiting museums and historical sites in addition to existing interpretive content. We hosted several “hackathons” on site to test new concepts and create prototypes for new interfaces. After a few surprises, and lots of fun (it takes a bit of time for the brain to adjust to sensations it’s not used to!) several fascinating possibilities emerged. In the end, we all reached the same conclusion: virtual reality would be a fantastic tool for teleporting a visitor… during his or her visit! “What’s the point of teleporting a visitor?” you might ask, “Why not let the visitor simply enjoy whatever is on display, in real life, with his or her own eyes?” We believe both experiences are fully compatible. Imagine the following scenarios for just a moment (some of which are already available):

• You are in a gallery at a Natural History museum, looking at the skeleton of a Triceratops. Suddenly, the animal comes to life, transporting you to the Cretaceous period. And there to your right, look out! Behind you, even above your head…enormous dinosaurs are moving all around you. You suddenly feel very small.

• You are visiting a museum on the history of aviation. How would you like to take the control wheel of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis in your hands? You’re surrounded by the cockpit, the pilot seat, the control panel, and all of the instruments—just as if you were really there. In front of you, the sky and clouds fly by.

• You are visiting a World War I battle site, and there you are in the muddy trenches, listening to the sounds of war, as soldiers move about, telling you about their daily experiences and fears.

• You are visiting the Empire State Building. How would you like to experience the atmosphere of the construction site when this legendary skyscraper was being built? Around you, men are working on the beams, while 1930s New York spreads out below your feet. We hope you’re not afraid of heights!

These are only a few examples, of course. Each site will be free to come up with whatever is most likely to make their visitor experience particularly memorable: explore the temple where an ancient statue was originally located; visit the reconstruction of a site that no longer exists (Pompeii, the Bastille prison, etc.); discover a place closed off to the public (the Lascaux caves, the Oval Office, etc.)

Virtual Reality takes the visitor to the heart of an immersive sensory experience

Art museums will be no exception. Virtual reality is also capable of teleporting you into Renoir’s studio, or into Monet’s gardens at Giverny. You’ll be able to observe artists as they work, or hear them tell you about their masterpieces. You may also soon be able to experience artwork made up of both real and virtual components – or even be transported straight into a painting or the visual universe of its creator (e.g., Van Gogh’s universe)… because admit it, we’re not the only ones who have thought about passing through the canvas! Soon you’ll be able to explore a work from the inside, and brush shoulders with its characters. Here’s your chance to attend, along with all the glamorous spectators, the coronation of Napoleon or the Marriage at Cana :)

Another fun and educational use for virtual reality is to let the visitor “walk” through a life sized timeline in order to situate a work in its historical and artistic context.

There’s a strong chance this new paradigm will be an important influence on the scenography of museums. It’s easy to imagine a few virtual reality headsets taking the place of more cumbersome installations. The headsets could even be connected to one another to allow a group to simultaneously share the same experience.

Virtual reality is still evolving, but one thing is sure: the possibilities are infinite. Not only does it allow us to travel in time and space, but it also opens up imaginary dimensions that would be inaccessible without it, like the most intimate aspects of a work of art. Virtual reality takes the visitor to the heart of an immersive sensory experience that is extremely stimulating to the imagination and memory, allowing you to form a deep connection with the place you are visiting.

On the same subject: “Virtual Reality has arrived at GuidiGO!”