Virtual Museum ‘Takeouts’ and DIY Exhibitions –Augmented Reality Apps for Scholarship, Citizen Science and Public Engagement

Abstract

This paper presents an Augmented Reality (AR) project for the curation of virtual museum ‘takeouts’ and DIY exhibitions. The project’s outputs include novel AR app technology demonstrators, to support co-design with museum users and stakeholders - the goal being to create easy-to-use AR apps for scholars, citizen scientists and the interested public. The apps were designed for users to create, display, animate and interact with exhibitions of selected 3D artefacts that could, for example, reflect academic specialisms for sharing with fellow researchers or could be eclectic favourites from museum visits to show to friends or to use in school activities. The overarching project ambition, was to create AR apps to support research, engagement and education and to enable visualizations of individual artefacts as well as to assemble or reconstruct artefact forms. These forms are exemplified with 3D models of a cuneiform envelope and its tablet contents, viewable either as i) separate artefacts or ii) in their original enveloped form, with the AR apps enabling animated opening and ‘X-ray views’ of the contents within. In this way, the apps can enable users to visualize individual objects or reconstructions that can comprise artefacts held in different museums. This work is complemented by Euromed 2020 Android and iPhone AR app poster papers that account for the individual app developments, whilst this paper surveys the AR context, the design decisions and the wider project goals and ambitions.