The Skokloster Experience

Abstract

Below is presented a Virtual Reality project focusing on digitizing cultural heritage and providing an immersive experience from the castleSkokloster in Sweden. The goal of the project is to facilitate field work for researchers and to provide a tourist attraction for those unable to visit the castle physically. With this goal we ask the research question: “In this paper we ask, how can VR add value through immersive interactions when historic sites like Skokloster are inaccessible?”. We present several similar projects from different museums and exhibitions around the world and inspire from these, together with requirements provided by stakeholders at Skokloster. We present and analyze several HCI projects working towards immersive and interactive realities to be able to design interactions according to their study results and validate our study through previous work. The interactions mostly revolve around a book that belonged to a previous owner of the castle and gives an insight into proverbs and quotes that were considered important and educational during the 17th century. The prototype has been evaluated by HCI students at Stockholm University, which showed some technical difficulties for the participants, but which has subsequently been corrected and the app has been finalized according to these results. In answering our research question, we conclude that a Virtual Environment does add value to historic sites. Finally, a discussion and potential future work on the prototype is presented, where the report results in the goal being achieved and future projects have the opportunity of easily expanding the  prototype based on the design made.