Design of augmented reality and virtual reality applications
As for all the novelties and innovations in the field of new technologies and information and communication, we carry out a necessary and regular watch on the digital tools of the moment or to come. This monitoring is done by providing information to manufacturers and suppliers of equipment, but also through contact with museography professionals (trade shows, conferences, etc.). We also have the opportunity to test and evaluate the technical performance of equipment during R&D missions, in order to imagine other concrete applications for innovative devices.
We design and create tools adapted to the space and the visitor. Augmented reality is a technology that allows the integration of virtual elements in 3D within a real environment. Thus, we combine the virtual and the real and give the illusion of a perfect integration to the visitor.
In the cultural context, this technology allows to present disappeared objects, inaccessible, within the framework of reconstitutions of the past. It can be perfectly integrated into playful applications with characters or points of interest that enrich the visit and give visitors the opportunity to focus on architectural elements, for example. We then speak of enhanced visits, augmented, by offering enriched content.
Augmented reality also serves as an educational tool for children, to manipulate, play in a cultural context and give them other keys to understanding. Whether it is augmented reality (AR), the experience makes the visitor all the more active in his visit and encourages him to move, and interact in an original way with what surrounds him.
Concerning virtual reality, it is more about the digital simulation of an environment by the machine. According to the technologies used, it allows the user to feel a virtual universe through his different senses: the sight, most often but also the touch, the hearing, the smell… in short a purely multimedia and multisensory environment. It allows to live an immersion experience and to practice a senso-motor activity in an artificial world. The visitor generally uses a virtual reality helmet, which generates a stereoscopic 3D display. Thus, virtual reality immerses the visitor entirely in a landscape imagined with our clients, like a dive into a painting to discover the details and its genesis, or an exploration of the depths of the ocean, in front of the fauna, or finally a multimedia escapade in space. The conception of such projects generally goes hand in hand with a particular attention paid to the conditions of visit: security, accompaniment of the visitor for the port and the withdrawal of the helmet, management of the flows, etc.