Displaying research data between archaeologists or to the general public is usually through linear presentations, timed or stepped through by a presenter. Through the use of motion tracking and gestures being tracked by a camera sensor, presenters can provide a more engaging experience to their audience, as they won't have to rely on prepared static media, timing, or a mouse. While low-cost camera tracking allow participants to have their gestures, movements, and group behaviour fed into the virtual environment, either directly (the presenter is streamed) or indirectly (a character represents the presenter). Using an 8 metre wide curved display (Figure 1) that can feature several on-screen panes at once, the audience can view the presenter next to a digital environment, with slides or movies or other presentation media triggered by the presenter’s hand or arm pointing at specific objects (Figure 2). An alternative is for a character inside the digital environment mirroring the body gestures of the presenter; where the virtual character points will trigger slides or other media that relates to the highlighted 3D objects in the digital scene.

1. Motion Control For Remote
Archaeological Presentations
issues, solutions, future design potential
Professor Erik Champion, Faculty of
Humanities, Curtin University, Western
Australia

2. My interest in Virtual Heritage
• Background in architecture, (art
history) and philosophy
• PhD with Lonely Planet in virtual
environments for travel and tourism
• Taught interaction design and game
design at UQ, UNSW, Massey
• Past-Project Manager at
DIGHUMLAB (Denmark)
• Professor of Cultural Visualisation,
Curtin University, Perth, Western
Australia
2

3. Lack tools to present 3D remotely

4. Oculus lacks social presence

5. Second Life Lacks Attentional Focus

6. Presenting on a curved screen
Curtin HIVE (Hub for Immersive Visualisation and
eResearch)

7. Also issue with game mods – can use NPCs
-Eric Fassbender, Macquarie University UNSW

8. the museums of tomorrow
https://twitter.com/plevy/status/433058523836985344/pho
to/1

9. Place-ness required for
Cultural presence
• To evoke +communicate historical situations or heritage values find
deeper understandings not simply memorize facts (Bloom, 1956).
• Place is a cultural setting, it gives cultural interaction a time and a
location, Crang (1998, p.103), “Spaces become places as they
become ‘time-thickened’”
• Places do not just organise space, they orient, identify, and animate
the bodies, minds, and feelings of both inhabitants and visitors.
• Cultural presence: a feeling in a virtual environment that people
with a different cultural perspective occupy or have occupied that
virtual environment as a ‘place’.
9

10. Definitions
NEW MEDIA: the act of reshaping the user experience
through the innovative use of digital media.
VIRTUAL HERITAGE: convey the appearance,
meaning, significance and social agency that
designed and used cultural artefacts and sites,
(through the use of interactive and immersive digital
media).
NEW HERITAGE: re-examine the user experience that
digital media can provide for the understanding and
experiencing of tangible and intangible cultural
heritage
Erik Champion, in Y. E. Kalay, T. Kvan, & J. Affleck, New Heritage: new
media and cultural heritage. New York: Routledge, 2008.10

11. UPF: CAVE + Kinect: how to interact?

12. UPF: how to present info?

13. UPF: Catch creatures in net

14. Engagement - selfie (MS Kinect-Sesame St)

15. APA game
- Bologna CINECA

16. At CURTIN HIVE we have similar challenges

17. Jeffrey Jacobson
Narrator in Way of Audience
www.publicVR.org

18. Example: Narrator not facing audience, pointing to?

20. Tiled Displays Aren’t Immersive

21. Puppetry but evaluation issues
21

22. How to involve the audience?

23. Also Issues with Domes

24. 3D film studio but how to incorporate?

25. Using a Turing Test
Try to disguise yourself as an NPC or take over their role in
society and see how long you last before being discovered.

26. Biofeedback could affect..
• Triggered or default behaviours
of the avatar.
• Control camera views (based
on heartbeat).
• Change trust (galvanic skin
response-sweat).
• The field of view (music or
character anger).
• Control other NPCs
(calmness).

27. Touchscreen Taoism
Chinese Taoism Touch Screen by Neil
Wang and Erik Champion
(VSMM2012 conference)
Opening:
Game Hua -
http://youtu.be/DiGDezTM8hY
Game Qi1 -
http://youtu.be/jP9nfdUFDTU
Game Qi2 -
http://youtu.be/orCga2CQBjs
Game Qin -
http://youtu.be/iC2BGT5IbDE
Game Shu -
http://youtu.be/dv_TOnl_sbc

28. 3D film studio but how to incorporate?

29. 3D presentation + slides

30. 3D objects with physics

33. Pix4D SA, EPFL Innovation Park, Switzerland,
www.pix4d.com
https://sketchfab.com/models/7f022938bee44f36bde778d
affdbea8e

34. Camera tracking:mirror+puppet + replace avatar

35. Panoramic movies+ 3D models + scholarly archives

36. Biofeedback, Rituals Worlds + Roleplaying, Violence, Interactive
Narrative/Drama, Virtual Heritage, Heuristics
erik.champion@curtin.edu.au nzerik@gmail.com
www.erikchampion.wordpress.com twitter: @nzerik