Cost-Effective Strategies for the Digital Future: A Critique of Options

Clark Dodsworth and Jeff Mayer

Introduction

This article is derived from a paper presented at the International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST) in November 2001 in Athens, Greece. The conference focused both on 3D content development projects and innovative underlying technologies related to heritage site interpretation. Most of the presenters were researchers from universities in Europe and the U.S. who are considerably more closely allied with computer science and archaeology departments than museums.

With many excellent projects presented at VAST, it is evident that the task of content development—that is, reconstruction of accurate 3D digital versions of ancient sites from archaeological information—is progressing well. However, creating a body of convincingly realistic 3D content still has some bottlenecks, as does the implementation and use of digital collections in museums. Remaining challenges are technological, strategic, and/or financial. In many cases, the hurdles are now only financial, which is a major step forward.

The fact that most presenters at VAST were not from museums or heritage sites indicates that there is currently a fundamental mismatch between museum exhibit budgets and any effective means of digital 3D visualization for cultural heritage education, not to mention 1:1 scale immersive stereoscopic virtual reality.

Given sufficient budgets for both development and maintenance, digital 3D reconstructions of ancient sites can be excellent educational tools and extraordinary vehicles for improving a cultural heritage institution’s attendance, public profile, and revenue. But the latter can only happen when the 3D reconstructions are integrated into the overall exhibitry at a scale large enough to accommodate at least several visitors simultaneously.

There are three key issues in the digital future of heritage institutions:

1. We believe that the future of museums and cultural heritage institutions hinges on how well they translate their assets into the digital realm. This means placing a priority on creating high-resolution, very accurately digitized portions of their collections, a digital asset base. It will support and enhance archives, research, documentation, communications, traveling and temporary shows, professional staff, public persona, and especially exhibits, both onsite and online.
   
   
2. Equally important is the question of how soon institutions will consider the fluidity and utility of their digital asset base at the same level as their collections and research. That perspective is key to expanding the museum audience, long-term.
   
   
3. Finally, their future depends on how well the institutions learn from and adapt to the competition, some of which are new to the heritage world's arena, being highly competitive, and highly compelling. Adaptation includes a plethora of facility designs that capture customers’ leisure time, but in every instance, it will also involve creating meaningful and memorable experience-based learning that can compete with venues rooted in the entertainment business. It means looking at your offerings more like educational attractions.

Expanding into the Digital Realm

Currently, the most appropriate use for 3D technology in the museum field lies in the digitization of our cultural heritage—creating digitally based, high-resolution archives of the artifacts, their uses and contexts, and the museum spaces themselves. To make the archives most effective, we should make them available interactively—and the sooner the better. These derivations of the collections, the digital asset base, will eventually constitute a large part of the core intellectual property of all cultural heritage institutions, and will be the foundation for most of those institutions’ educational and revenue-generating efforts.

Extending Beyond Four Walls

We believe that in the future, the most important displays of any heritage site or museum will occur outside of the facility—online, in-home, and in urban public areas. This may seem heretical, but is an inevitable result of what is becoming known as “ubicomp,” or ubiquitous computing. In the ubicomp era, the average person will be connected wirelessly all the time, with that connection informing her very progress through any city, building, or narrative.

The institutional challenge lies in enduring as a vital part of people’s lives by providing information and services via these new modalities, while securing revenue from them to pay for it. The connectivity aspect of this profound change to ubicomp will be solved long before the revenue models, but neither one can be ignored for much longer.

To participate in such an extended customer relationship, museums will first need to digitize collections and develop strategies for accessing the digital content.

Appropriate Technology—Virtual or Real?

The best design solutions are usually simple and appropriate. Both the physical place and the technology behind it should feel like the purpose for which they are created, and should communicate the experience that one is trying to evoke.

The phrase “appropriate technology” enfolds many dimensions. In addition to cost-effectiveness, successful human-computer interface technologies offer a shallow learning curve for the user. If the visitor can’t learn very quickly, you never get to chance to engage them. For informal users of immersive 3D and virtual 3D, the learning curve for visitors is currently too steep. This is because society has not adopted common designs for interfacing with 3D via computers. The current techniques are neither familiar nor obvious enough for the user to feel comfortable.

Cutting-edge technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems (headgear that superimposes text on the artifacts you see) offer intriguing solutions for those interested in “state of the art” experiences for their patrons. However, they are not yet effective tools for a large-scale public venue because the overwhelming majority of visitors are not ready to embrace these display technologies. Most visitors above the age of twenty experience difficulty using VR, AR, and even simple 3D browsing, when compared to the effort required of more common guest experiences at a heritage site. Additionally, strict limits on throughput in a true VR system make it economically far less viable.

In contrast, we already have well-thought-out means of presenting large-scale, even 1:1-scale, visually and aurally immersive, projected interactive content in 2D. These technologies are more cost-effective, less confounding, and arguably more impactful. For example, two-dimensional projection of navigable 3D content is common in many computer games, which are only successful if such incidentals as navigation do not occlude the experience.

In a museum or heritage site, 3D content can impact a much larger audience per unit time, merely by not offering stereoscopic display, which is one feature of true VR. In addition, eliminating stereoscopic display enables wider viewing angles so a larger floor area in front of the screen is useful. The key to making this medium impactful lies in artful exhibition space design, some examples of which are presented later.

One obvious factor in the success of exhibits and learning is the level of shared, social experience provided to the visitors. In the words of the Victorian critic, Walter Pater, we almost always want visitors “to catch light and heat from each other’s thoughts,” as an integral part of their designed museum experience. Most implementations of VR systems discourage rather than encourage the shared social experience, tending to isolate the user. Some of the most promising VR applications for creating a social dynamic are the CAVE™ and the Immersadesk™ and variations on those designs. Information about both can be found on the web.

At this juncture, if cultural heritage site managers are fiscally responsible, they are unlikely to commission true VR exhibits, which usually have high relative cost, low throughput, high maintenance, rapid hardware obsolescence, special training for staff, and the potential to fragment the group experience. This does not mean we discourage VR applications; we have been involved for example, in VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and Web3D since 1995. However, it does mean that the current most impactful and cost-effective technology for communicating a museum-quality, immersive experience of a reconstructed 9th-century walled city is not virtual reality. It’s older solutions, like environment-scaled video projection, or the 70mm motion-base ride films found in theme parks, and increasingly, in science museums.

Intelligent Exhibition Space

As a result of the decreasing price of computers and digital displays, appropriate technology can now mean making the exhibit space more intuitively interactive, responsive and adaptive to the visitor’s individual learning style. Other techniques can make interactivity low-key and implicit. For example, making the exhibit “smart” enough so that it can develop visitor profiles in its memory, such that it recognizes and remembers a visitor with each visit, and then reconfigures the experience it offers by taking into account what he or she had previously done with it. The same must be done by the entire institution, of course, and last a lifetime for each visitor.

Additionally, one could animate the walls, floors or ceilings with auxiliary information that heightens ambient learning. We can project live and recorded video, text, and still imagery cost-effectively onto vast surfaces, and alter the images in real time in response to sensors responding to the visitor’s input. This allows us to think of the entire museum as a responsive and interactive medium for communicating your message. In effect, we are able to make the entire museum and its various extensions to function as a compound, multi-modal, responsive interface at every scale.

With the addition of virtual presence, there is an opportunity to deploy a compound, multi-modal interface with your customer at multiple scales, with different amounts of detail, in many locations and contexts. The historic approach of placing the bulk of the communication burden on informational signs and graphics in conjunction with the artifacts themselves will never disappear, but will be only one part, and one that changes dynamically, depending on the individual reading the sign.

Motion-Base Experiences

Another successful model in use of digital technologies in visitor-experience venues is the motion-base ride. This medium is pre-rendered at very high resolution and does not require visitor-controlled navigation. It has a 5-minute, repeating queue line presentation and often, about three to six minutes of well-produced video pre-show delivering much of the story and background. It also employs a 5-minute, large-screen, 70mm film climax to the story, with six-channel audio, plus an auxiliary Learning Resource Guide of educational print materials after the visitor exits the experience. Perhaps most important, it offers much greater throughput per hour than any VR system ever built. Such systems provide a tightly focused experience.

Case Studies of these types of effective solutions are presented below.

Case Study 1: Camões in Lisbon

A good cultural heritage example is the themed attraction, “Camões,” which opened at the Expo ’98 site in July 2000, in Lisbon, Portugal. This seven-part custom experience takes visitors back in time to share the knowledge and experiences of the revered Portuguese poet and national hero, Luis de Camões. It begins with a realistic (120 square meters) neighborhood square in the historic Alfama district of Lisbon, with three different video and projection-based scenes that are played out between people in “windows” that are half a dozen vertically mounted 60" plasma displays, telling the back-story, or introduction. Then the visitor group walks into a 12-square-meter theater that is themed as an open pavilion in Macao, for Camões to begin telling his story. Finally, the visitors proceed to dockside in Japan, and into a Portuguese galleon, which partly conceals the motion-base ride. The visitors face a large, 70mm film screen with 6-channel audio and wind effects, and they experience the memorable climax to Camões’ story.

Figure 1. Camões Experience, Lisbon, Portugal: The Alfama Square introduction.

There is a vast gap between that kind of pre-rendered shared experience—with its ability to generate revenue and vivid memories—and the extraordinary VR experiences coming out of UCLA’s Cultural VR Lab (like their Forum Romanum project), for example. The gap is one of social educational experience vs. highly personalized experience. In a heritage site, the VR gap is sometimes a result of not exhaustively answering the questions, “Who is the onsite audience?” and “What will they best respond to?” in the context of the strategic goals of the heritage site. Answering those questions yields a rich range of potentially viable, innovative, cost-effective and exciting solutions that are founded not on VR techniques, but in the conjunction of those tools with age-old, proven techniques of product development, interior architecture, theater, and show business.

Figure 2. Camões Experience, Lisbon, Portugal: The Pre-show theater as a Macao pavilion.

Digital archaeology can provide unique aspects of the cultural heritage visitor experience in academically valid yet commercially viable ways, but not if the presentation technology takes precedence over the user experience. In the words of Bob Ward, Senior Vice President of Creative Development for Universal Studios theme parks, “No matter what technology you use, the only special effect that matters is the emotional effect within the viewer.”

Case Study 2: Exhibition design as an Educational Attraction: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Expositions

The design of two 90,000 square foot Expositions for the ACM demonstrates the value of crafting a dynamic, compelling message through the use of large-scale immersive 2D projection when 3D databases are neither available nor cost-effective. Fabrication and technology budgets for both expos were less than $10 per square foot, but that did not mean large-scale projection became unaffordable. In fact, the commanding presence of these environment-sized displays helped offset other necessary cost cutting measures.

The ACM97 Exposition transported visitors to a future time where they uncovered an archaeological dig of a Digital Science Center dating back to the “Paleotechnic Era of Computing,” (1950-2000 A.D.) To augment this story, three side-by-side colossal projection screens (sized 18x24' each) towered above the show floor, providing continuous, historical footage of computing throughout the exhibits.

At the ACM1 Exposition, in March 2001, multiple sweeping projection screens filled the guests’ field of vision. A massively scaled, 25' high by 55' wide screen (made of scrim) dominated the visitors’ vista from the main entrance. The scrim captured a single, scrolling panorama of imagery from a Pani projector that carries a never-ending loop of film-based images. This technique made the walls come alive with visual messages supporting the exposition’s theme, Beyond Cyberspace. Two other screens, 18' high by 30' wide, displayed content created by specific exhibitors that illustrated the story being told. Three 9x12' projection screens punctuated the journey throughout the exhibition floor, providing ambient imagery that strengthened the story, while doubling as wayfinding devices. Jeff Mayer, a storyline-focused exhibition designer and co-author of this article, led Gensler’s multidisciplinary team of exhibit and show designers in creating these cohesive visitor experiences.

Figure 3. ACM97 Conference and Exposition: Paleotechnic archaeological dig themeing, San Jose, CA., Spring, 1997.

Figure 4. ACM1 Conference and Exposition, San Jose, CA., March 2001: Exhibit design concept drawing showing large-scale 2D projection screens at floor level.

Case Study 3: Orlando’s “Cultural Byways for the Information Highway”

This is a good example of how the fluidity of a cultural institution’s digital asset base enables history to be disseminated citywide, and for exhibitry to change with not only the seasons or the next touring show, but at every street corner and for every anniversary of a local historical event. The head of design for this project is a collaborator of ours, Christopher Stapleton, who recently left Universal Studios theme parks after long involvement in designing the best theme park in the world, “Islands of Adventure” in Orlando. He is applying his experience from there and from the New York theater to this large and forward-looking cultural heritage project in Orlando with a diverse consortium of participants.

The project uses LCD video monitors installed in city buses to turn the buses into mobile computer cursors. On-screen, they display historical images, video and text, thanks to global positioning systems (GPS) and much production effort by local university students. The system interprets exactly the part of the street the bus is driving on at any given time and responds with appropriate images and information. It is proven, cost-effective, and has been running since last fall. It is now expanding to more buses and different routes in the city. The video monitors and the content are not currently interactive, nor do they need to be. Future versions will allow interactive “mining” of the local history, and will also be available for GPS-enabled palmtop computers and screen phones. We expect such implementations to be ubiquitous and worldwide, which will require production and design partnerships between cultural heritage institutions, interactive design departments of local universities, and city management. And they will carry your interpretive message many miles farther that it now reaches.

Figure 5. The Cultural Byways project places historical information and photographs on LCD screens in GPS-outfitted city buses, as the buses pass the locations of the early photographs. Interactivity may be added at a later stage of the project.

Case Study 4: Electronic Arts’ “Majestic”

The computer game industry has by far the most interface design experience in the world, and it gets wonderful, rapid feedback for design ideas that don’t work. Although home videogames have contributed to reduced attendance at heritage sites around the world, the hard-learned lessons of game design are readily available for exhibit design, and for the design evolution of the entire heritage site environment. Game designers long ago stopped designing for themselves; they go to great lengths to make it effortless to enter a game and begin to take part in the experience. They also strive to be ubiquitously available, to establish a community of interest, and to keep the user’s attention with follow-on game experiences at regular intervals. Few if any successful videogames have existed on their own, as a one-off. These are just a few of the lessons we can use. This is what cultural heritage institutions can and must do for their most interested visitors (the younger the better)—becoming the source of information about their favorite topic area, for their entire lives.

Lessons Learned

The researchers at the VAST digital reconstructive archaeology conference are generally not constrained by cost parameters in their designs, as their focus is on discovering new techniques. They presented extraordinary, futuristic exhibitry systems, many of which are not yet affordable, though they possess elements that will be common in museums in less than a decade.

Conversely, heritage institutions haven’t been oriented toward futuristic thinking, but the lesson here is that the future is arriving faster than most of us expect. Now we must explore the middle ground, a sequence of efforts that go beyond traditional exhibit space design, basic interactive exhibits, and typical web sites, but which are only as futuristic as is financially sound. That may mean re-allocating resources and some job descriptions, and devising new ways to generate revenue from digital collections. Those efforts will become the path by which institutions self-educate and prepare for each “next step” along the way to being a fully digital, always-connected, always-available part of the culture.

The real-world contact in Majestic is related to Customer Relationship Management, a category of e-commerce software and practice for four years now, perhaps better-termed Visitor Relationship Management in heritage institutions. If you combine that with some of the engagement and interface techniques of computer entertainment, with appropriate large-screen-projection responsive environments using your own digitized content, then deliver it all with personalized wireless links to visitors’ everyday lives, you have real convergence, which is indispensable to the future of heritage institutions.

Clark Dodsworth is Principal of Osage Associates in San Francisco, California and an ILE Fellow. He can be reached at clark@dodsworth.com.

Jeff Mayer is Managing Director at the Santa Monica office of Gensler Architecture, Design, & Planning. He can be reached at jeff_mayer@gensler.com.

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