Notarangelo Nicla Maria, Manfredi Gilda, Gilio Gabriele
School of Engineering, University of Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy.
Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Economics, University of Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy.
J Imaging. 2023 Apr 21;9(4):88. doi: 10.3390/jimaging9040088.
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for real-time, collaborative virtual tools to support remote activities across various domains, including education and cultural heritage. Virtual walkthroughs provide a potent means of exploring, learning about, and interacting with historical sites worldwide. Nonetheless, creating realistic and user-friendly applications poses a significant challenge. This study investigates the potential of collaborative virtual walkthroughs as an educational tool for cultural heritage sites, with a focus on the Sassi of Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Italy. The virtual walkthrough application, developed using RealityCapture and Unreal Engine, leveraged photogrammetric reconstruction and deep learning-based hand gesture recognition to offer an immersive and accessible experience, allowing users to interact with the virtual environment using intuitive gestures. A test with 36 participants resulted in positive feedback regarding the application's effectiveness, intuitiveness, and user-friendliness. The findings suggest that virtual walkthroughs can provide precise representations of complex historical locations, promoting tangible and intangible aspects of heritage. Future work should focus on expanding the reconstructed site, enhancing the performance, and assessing the impact on learning outcomes. Overall, this study highlights the potential of virtual walkthrough applications as a valuable resource for architecture, cultural heritage, and environmental education.
新冠疫情凸显了对实时协作虚拟工具的需求，以支持包括教育和文化遗产在内的各个领域的远程活动。虚拟漫游提供了一种强有力的方式，用于探索、了解世界各地的历史遗迹并与之互动。尽管如此，创建逼真且用户友好的应用程序仍面临重大挑战。本研究调查了协作式虚拟漫游作为文化遗产地教育工具的潜力，重点关注意大利的马泰拉石窟民居，它是联合国教科文组织世界遗产。使用RealityCapture和虚幻引擎开发的虚拟漫游应用程序，利用摄影测量重建和基于深度学习的手势识别，提供了一种身临其境且易于使用的体验，允许用户通过直观的手势与虚拟环境进行交互。对36名参与者进行的测试，得到了关于该应用程序的有效性、直观性和用户友好性的积极反馈。研究结果表明，虚拟漫游可以提供复杂历史地点的精确呈现，促进遗产的有形和无形方面。未来的工作应侧重于扩大重建地点、提高性能，并评估对学习成果的影响。总体而言，本研究强调了虚拟漫游应用程序作为建筑、文化遗产和环境教育宝贵资源的潜力。
