Using immersive Virtual Reality to engage the public with Cultural Heritage

David JOHN | D. HURST | P. CHEETHAM | H. MANLEY

This paper discusses the preliminary results of an evaluation of the development of a visualisation of an Iron Age Hill Fort that was performed using a game engine for a Heritage Lottery Fund Project. The background issues are discussed including the use of virtual reality for Virtual Heritage applications, the use of game engines to create the environments, and the use of immersive technologies in public engagement activities. The experience of the development stage is discussed including the optimisation requirements, the use of LiDAR to create the landscape terrain and the interaction features. The initial results of a survey that analysed the use of the application within public engagement is presented. The contribution of this paper is the experiences derived from the development process and the analysis of the survey results.