Conference keynote slides for Hainan Conference, November 2019, Hainan China. Virtual heritage is the combination of virtual reality and cultural heritage. It promises the best features of both, but is difficult to achieve in reality. Why is this so challenging? Has virtual reality offered more than tantalising glimpses of the future in the related fields of cultural heritage and tourism? The features virtual reality (VR) shares with mixed reality (MR) and augmented reality (AR) are mostly agreed upon, but there are at least two perplexing issues. Technological fusion implies imaginative fusion, and augmented reality had a previous ocular focus. Virtual reality as a term is also in danger of being replaced by the term XR. What is XR and why is it so potentially useful to heritage tourism? Given VR, AR, MR and XR are typically screen-based, how can screen tourism capitalize of cultural heritage and virtual reality, and on the unique selling points of XR? I will conclude with a few suggestions and projects we are currently working on or about to commence. Cite as: K8 Champion, E. (2019). Virtual Heritage, Gaming, & Cultural Tourism, 4th Boao International Tourism Communication Forum (ITCF), Hainan, China, 23-24 November. Interviewed on Chinese television. http://www.baitcf.com/index.php/Ch/Cms/Index/indexe

1. Virtual Heritage, Gaming, &
Cultural Tourism
Erik Champion, @nzerik erik.champion@curtin.edu.au
UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage and Visualisation
MCASI, CIC, Curtin University, Perth Australia

2. Erik Champion
UNESCO Chair: to promote cultural
heritage via interactive, immersive
technology: VR, AR, serious games)

3. Hainan Tourist Futures "Hawaii of China"
• “become a magnet for
international tech start-ups
with incentives including
reduced rents and other
financial benefits.”
• “The island itself has now
become a huge draw for
travellers with over 76
million domestic and
overseas tourists heading to
Hainan last year, a jump of
nearly 12 per cent…”
https://www.traveller.com.au/chinas-tropical-tech-hub-attracting-travellers-h1hoqb

4. I won’t give Virtual & Augmented
Reality projected numbers…
Hainan should develop an experience for
Hainan..

5. VIRTUAL HERITAGE IS..
• combination of virtual reality +
cultural heritage.
• Promises best of both, fails often.
• Few interaction design studies
• Lack of preservation
• Forgets end-users, doesn’t provide reuse

6. 140+3D FORMATS!!

7. 3D content is only
PART of problem

8. Publications don’t
link to 3D assets

9. Why virtual reality cannot match the
real thing (?)
“… the emotions you feel when you have a virtual experience
are not as valuable. When you actually see Niagara Falls,
especially if you get up close, you feel awe and even fear in the
face of an overpowering force of nature… Computer
simulations, however good, contain only what photography,
laser technology and pre-existing expertise put into them… Real
experiences connect us to the deeds of past people and place us
in contexts where history was made… VR will never be a
substitute for encounters with the real thing.”
- Janna Thompson Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe University.
https://theconversation.com/why-virtual-reality-cannot-match-the-real-thing-92035

10. Even better than the real thing..U2
https://youtu.be/Vo4hCg91Xhk

11. https://youtu.be/Vo4hCg91Xhk
Works better as scenes in HMDs?
Designers aren’t the audience

12. ENVIRONMENT VS EXPERIENCE .. AND VR TOURISM?
Tourism: a road less
travelled?

13. Evaluation Content (intro, 3 Archaeol., 3
gamic)
Objective: Compare to
Task Performance 6 objects to find Understanding
Cultural
Understanding
6 questions x 3 virtual
environments (learn by
observing, conversing with bots,
activity)
Which VE most challenging to
explore, find or change?
Preference,
demographics, task
performance
Presence Survey
(rank 1 to 7)
Most: interesting; interactive;
related to ‘Mayan’; inhabited; in
the presence of Mayan culture
Demographics, to task
performance; find
personal preference in
answers, rank 7 VEs
Environmental recall Shadows; real people; height of
locals vs tourists; number of
people
Demographics and to task
performance and to
understanding
Subjective
Experience (of time
passing)
In which VE did time pass
quickest? How fast did they
update the screen?
Subjective preference
and to demographics
PhD: U. of Melbourne, Lonely Planet 2001-4

14. Biofeedback controls characters, music,
graphics, gameplay (A. Dekker, UQ, 2007)

15. Motion-controlled/designed Minecraft

16. Active Classrooms
Non Playing Characters MIRROR your gestures..
NON PLAYING CHARACTER
GESTURE CONTROLLED IN-WORLD NARRATOR

17. Beata Dawson, PhD project, Pauline Joseph co-supervisor
PANORAMAS

18. PhD Project: Rusaila Bazlamit (supervisor: Andrew Hutchison Erik Champion)
MIXED WALL VRE

19. Shown at VSMM2012 conference, Milan, Italy 2012.
Chinese Taoism Touch Screen by Li (Neil) Wang and Erik Champion.
Touchscreen Taoism

20. Susannah Emery-Sims Machinima

21. Curtin 2016, Makathon (left); CAA2017 Atlanta (below, right).
Digital Cities, Digital Humanities Summer School: Game Prototypes, Politecnico, Italy 2018; 2019.
Game design
workshops

22. Agathe Limouzy Toulouse student intern project (“collaborative Learning” one character shared by 2
2 people control 1 character

23. https://alisonjamesart.com/2017/03/12/what-is-a-virtuality /
Milgram Takemura Utsumi & Kishino (1994)
Giovanni Vincenti

24. AR: “Layered” AR: “Embedded”

25. XR: Extended Reality (whole spectrum)
Given VR, AR, MR and XR are
typically screen-based, how can
screen tourism capitalize on
cultural heritage via XR?
• VR is moving towards a
consumer-component based
system.
• Smartphone is a stereoscopic
viewer & a sensor & a PC
• Consumer technology
frameworks will help improve
access..
WebXR or OpenXR works in browser

26. Phone-based VR C Seated VR

27. B Seated/standing VR

28. Walkable VR
A Walking Mixed Reality (MR)

29. SS Xantho Steam Engine, Mafkereseb Bekele
Mixed reality-SS Xantho

30. Duyfken, Mafkereseb Bekele

31. SS Xantho Steam Engine, Mafkereseb
Fremantle

32. Time-Layered Cultural
Map of Australia
(TLCMap)
Australian heritage connecting to
Pelagios & Recogito gazetteers

33. https://www.hidden.no/ IAN BRODIE

34. Projects moving closer to immersive tourism
• Interaction Design for large-scale Photogrammetric
models-WWII wrecks (ARC grant).
• Time Layered Cultural Map Project (ARC Grant).
• CIC grant: Crowd annotation + history maps.
• CIC grant: Historical journeys in XR (VR AR MR).
• A survey of international heritage infrastructures.
• 3 national applications in VR, AR and tourism.
• 2 Australian Research Data Commons applications.

35. Summary: VH-Tourism, A Creative Ecosystem
• Combine virtual reality and cultural
heritage.
• AUGMENT space, cultural significance,
audience.
• How to improve and leverage its success.
• CONVEY THE EXPERIENCE, not just the
numbers.
• LEVERAGE media beyond the visual.
• CHALLENGE the audience via their own
generations.
• INCLUDE continual content creators and
content holders.
• IMPLEMENT preservation and reuse strategies.