In partnership with Genesee Country Village & Museum, New York’s largest living history museum, we set out to explore the potential of augmented reality as a means for providing interactive storytelling experiences via a Virtual Museum Guide. We are developing an application that uses AR as part of a visitor engagement experience that may be deployed at the museum. We worked with the museum to select an historic figure associated with one of their buildings and developed a character to become the avatar. Research, 3-D software, audio recording and motion capture came together to create our Virtual Guide, that can be utilized through a variety of AR devices. Creators: Juilee Decker, Amanda Doherty, Joe Geigel, Gary D. Jacobs. Collaborators include: the staff of Genesee Country Village & Museum, in particular Becky Wehle and Peter Wisbey; students Hannah Chase and Kunal Shitut as well as Landyn Hatch, Lizzy Carr, and Brienna Johnson-Morris; faculty Andy Head and David Munnell. We also received research help from Katherine Collett, Archivist, Hamilton College Archives.
This video was created in November 2019. It shows an entire virtual environment with the avatar deployed within that world to simulate how the character would appear at the museum in the museum building where he would be activated. Therefore, all created environment would, instead, be the actual interior of the Livingston-Backus House, rather than digitally-rendered visuals. The avatar would be the only digital visual that the museum visitor would see, through the Microsoft Hololens or other device.
Link to: https://youtu.be/gtuQT4lXSL0
RIT Museum Studies Projects 