Marioneta: Virtual puppeteer experience

Abstract

Marioneta is an installation for the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh which uses the Microsoft Kinect v2 to allow guests to embody a collection of antique puppets in a virtual environment. Final installation in the museum is shown in Fig 1. The focus is on creating an experience wherein elements in the world react to the users' actions through these puppets[1]. Puppet models in the experience are based on a collection of puppets donated to the museum by Margo Lovelace. The original puppets are carefully exhibited in a large display case on the wall in the museum. Many of the puppets in the museum's collection are antiques, fragile or valuable and not suited to hands-on play by the museum's young visitors. Marioneta uses technology to make museum puppets available for imaginative and interesting play[2]. The experience is composed of auto-rotating seasonal stages and season related interactive objects that have visual and audial feedback. Users can throw a pumpkin in fall, pick up an ice ball in winter, play with cowbells in spring, and break a lantern filled with fireflies in summer. One of the stage scenes is shown in Fig 2. Marioneta is an updated version of Virpets, which began in 2001 and remained over 10 years in the museum[3].