AR (Augmented Reality) in museums can completely reach new level of interactions in which images, text, or sounds are superimposed on top of what a person already sees.
Our society and lives are enriched by the role that museums and galleries play. Objects of historical interest are preserved and displayed to enrich our knowledge or simply to make us curious.
There are still many museums who go the traditional “walk around and look around” route, but there are also those who want to move with the times and improve the guest experience. In today’s world, augmented reality is one of the best technologies.
Over the last few years, augmented reality has gained popularity and developed rapidly, and it is impossible not to notice the possibilities it offers.
Around the world, virtual museums and exhibitions have actively incorporated augmented reality into their displays, giving their visitors a completely new perspective on the displayed works.
By utilizing augmented reality, we can transform a typical museum into a futuristic archive. Let’s dig deeper into the article now.
Augmented Reality: Can Museums Make Use of it?
AR has many possibilities for museums. You can use AR to add explanations of pieces – which help visitors to get more information when they view exhibition. Sometimes, you may even use AR to display digital versions of artists. Showing them a 3D personas will bring objects or scenes to life.
Do you know, some of the famous institutions around the world are already starting to crave the taste of AR in museums? Look how they implemented AR in their projects.
Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle – They launched the project called REVIVRE (To Live Again) back in 2021 using Microsoft’s Hololens. This project let visitors to explore digital animals in face to face which real world are now extinct.
The National Gallery – Back in 2021, they took the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts and National Gallery beyond their walls of museum with AR. People can just use an app to activate the artworks by scanning the QR codes provided in the busy streets of London.
National Museum of Singapore – At present, they run an immersive exhibition of 69 images from the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings. Audience can explore those collections in a 3D animations by using the phone or tablet. Completely, a unique experience to explore our ancient paintings.
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. – Using AR technology, they bring a whole new dimensions to one of our oldest and most loved ancient display. Yes, visitors can explore the oldest collections of human skeleton in a completely new light using AR.
Ways of Using AR in Museums
Audio AR
It has been existed since the augmented reality started appearing in museums. But, with the help of AR you can give immersive and memorable audio tour experience.
In normal audio tour, you need to pause, play and rewind it back and forth as per the audience requirement. This will ruin your overall impression and there are lots of hassle involved.
With the help of AR apps, headsets and audio sources you can change the volume based on the visitors actions.
Along with this, AR can be able to track your position using GPS and the direction you look at using Gyroscope and your movement speed changes using Accelerometer. By using all those, it is possible to create a 3D audio environment so that visitors can experience the effective sounds for your exhibition.
Outdoor Exploration
Take the exploration experience out of the museum!
There are GPS-based augmented reality platforms that allow for creating interactive AR in museums.
The mobile gaming industry has started using those as soon as it became possible. And Pokémon Go is a prime example of successfully using the location-based augmented reality apps for entertainment.
AR Markers
These should not be mistaken for QR codes. The latter can only be processed using a QR scanner, whereas the AR Markes trigger a particular process whenever captured by a camera through an augmented reality application. Basically, any two-dimensional image can be made into a marker you could use for the AR app.
Then, as soon as the marker is captured, AR apps can overlap an image, audio, a video, additional information or a 3D model.
AR Museums Opportunity
The augmented reality opportunities are endless and they are constantly evolving. We work with new ideas and concepts that can be realized in a unique way.
What exactly are the capacities of AR in museums?
With VeeSpaces virtual museums widget, you can achieve,
- It attract more visitors by completely providing new experience of exploring.
- Resurrect ancient animals and famous historical characters – bring life to your exhibition
- Provide play and learn experience and it provide highly engaging way to learn many things about our ancients.
- Get rid of all those wooden panels and labels with hard-to-read texts that cannot cover all the aspects of an exhibit. You cannot crack open an antique radio just to show how it works.
Risk of using AR in Museums
The main concern is, technology can be isolating. The virtual exhibition being watched by the visitors will have the chance to share their screens around the social network. In this part, the exhibition even have the potential to engage strangers in conversation. Since they are our ancient models, we need to keep in protective as much.
Next thing is, the technology discrimination will affect the older generation people. Some virtual platforms likely have some installations in their stride and some people will struggle a lot and feel left out. In VeeSpace, this is not the case. With seamless integration and simple registration process you can give positive experience for such old aged people.
Last but not the least, there may be a chance of unauthorized augmentations. With AR in museums, there is a chance to impact the work of other artists. VeeSpaces was careful in this concern to avoid overwriting the existing piece of art work.