Virtual Museum of Contemporary Art

Abstract

The use of virtual reality may provide a user with an extraordinary tool for appreciation and exploration of art museums. In case of time-spatial works-of-art, typical of contemporary art museums, the problem of functionalities representation is very demanding, and the use of virtual reality becomes very important for high-fidelity artwork reproduction. The goal of this paper is to contribute in assessing the role of virtual reality when exploring contemporary art museums, focusing on the use of different display technologies and stereoscopic visualization. A specific testing application is proposed which inherently addresses typical reproduction challenges, such as physics and illumination simulation. The proposed application is experimented on five different VR facilities. Results confirmed benefits of stereo viewing and pointed out specific display advantages.