New technologies and virtual reality technology are instruments that involve the visitors in the cultural environment making them participants

1. Enhacing the User Experience
Unai Baeza
ubaeza@virtualware.es
Aida Otaola
aotaola@virtualware.es

2. Introduction
New technologies
are instruments
that involve the visitor
in the cultural environment
• Interactivity: free movement
• Immersive experience: VR hardware
• No intrusive data capturing method
• Realism and precision: loyal to the archaeological site
• Internet applications

3. Virtual Cave – The Calvario Gallery of Ardales

4. Virtual Cave – The Calvario Gallery of Ardales
• Virtual Reconstruction at Ardales Prehistory Museum
• User interactivity handling a gamepad to move inside the Calvario Gallery,
• It represents the engravings and paintings dating from the Upper Paleolithic

5. Working Process
• Data collection in the area
• Datum materialization and 3D laser scanning
• Digital photography
• Multispectral analysis
• Data processing in cabinet
• Previous data processing from 3D scanning
• Data processing from 3D scanning
• 3D Modeling, texturing and lighting
• Application setup
www.virtual-caves.com

6. Virtual Balconies - Armañón Natural Park
Provincial Council of Vizcaya
Council of Carranza
Interpretation Centre gathering the natural
and arecheological heritage of Armañón area
Augmented Reality Device:
• Superimposes contextual
information on landscapes
viewed through monocular

7. Virtual Museum
• A new way to discover how the museum is, through a virtual model, intending
the real visit to the museum.
• The three-dimensional model is based on objective data acquired using a
professional digital photographs
• The visitors can admire the completeness of the museum building to make it
recognizable.

8. The cave of Time, a trip to the past

9. The cave of Time, a trip to the past
Talking to our ancestors in Atapuerca
With the initiative The cave of time, a trip to the past, the Atapuerca Foundation faces the
challenge to communicate and transmit to society the historical and cultural heritage
that is part of our past, to get into society, to feel on the skin of a hominid, and to understand
how they lived.
The project, currently under implementation, is intended to design and fix a large
Stereoscopic Virtual Reality exhibition lounge that will enable us to communicate with
our ancestors in an immersive way. The visit will be controlled by a device as a guide by
which visitors will be submerged in the past to communicate with the hominids of 4 different
times in Prehistory under public request.
• Homo Antecessor
• Homo Heildelbergensis
• Homo Neandertalensis
• Homo Sapiens

10. Santimamiñe Cave sets a precedent
• Discovered in 1916
• Length of 365 meters
• Archaeological and geological richness (Cave paintings)
• Declared “World Heritage Site” in 2008 by UNESCO
Almost 1 million of people visited the cave meanwhile it
was open
Damage and deterioration
Cultural Department of Biscay County Council closed
the cave in 2006

11. Positive Balance of Exploitation Results

12. Positive Balance
First two weeks 2500 people
300 visits/week
20,276 visits in 12 months
4.7 under 5 virtual cave
More visitants than before
Official information from the Cultural Department of Biscay County Council
www.virtual-caves.com

13. Acknowledgements for the team
Thanks for your attention!
Unai Baeza Aida Otaola
ubaeza@virtualware.es aotaola@virtualware.es
@virtualware2007 youtube.com/virtualware
facebook.com/virtualware virtualware2007.blogspot.com