ARC-XR

Museums in the Metaverse is led by Professor Neil McDonnell (PI) working with Professor Maria Economou, Dr Pauline Mackay, and Professor Murray Pittock (Co-Is). The project will create a ground-breaking two-sided XR Culture and Heritage platform. Partners are University of Glasgow College of Arts & Humanities, Edify, Historic Environment Scotland, National Museums Scotland, and The Hunterian.

This £5.6 million project is funded by the UK Government’s Innovation Accelerator programme, led by Innovate UK on behalf of UK Research and Innovation.

Objectives of the project 

The project will create a ground-breaking two-sided Extended Reality (XR) Cultural Heritage platform that: empowers online visitors to explore cultural assets in new and engaging ways; enables cultural heritage professionals and non-specialist users to create new content; and explores models of use to support sustainable economic and cultural growth. 

The Museums in the Metaverse team say virtual museums won’t replace the experience of visiting a physical museum. However, they hope XR experiences will enhance the offering of museums by providing an innovative solution to constraints that can limit physical exhibitions to less than 10% of the objects held in collections and limit audience reach by cost, distance, and accessibility.

Impact

Professor Neil McDonnell, based at the University’s Advanced Research Centre (ARC) said: 

^{It is estimated that over 90% of objects in collections can’t be seen as they are in storage.  Museums in the Metaverse can help liberate these collections and will allow museums the freedom to connect with their audiences in new and exciting ways using XR technology. Just imagine being able to step into history and get up close to the virtual duplicates of ancient relics that in the real world can only be displayed or viewed behind glass. We also hope that the platform will bring new audiences to museums who are currently excluded as they live too far from biggest and best collections. Moreover, Museums in the Metaverse will make it possible for anyone create their own virtual museums and tell their own stories with objects from all around the world.}

 

To-date, creating museum experiences in the metaverse has proven challenging due to high costs associated with 3D content creation of objects and environments. The project’s highly skilled research staff will develop, streamline, and publish workflows using cutting edge photogrammetry equipment to boost the capacity for and affordability of heritage content creation in Scotland and beyond.

 

https://youtu.be/WQQ_mqH_Q0g?si=nUUbhK2oYxqz3UiU