Modeling and Virtualization of Cultural Heritage

Our research develops a framework for modeling and virtualizing cultural heritage using a game-based method. Our approach to preserve culture and keep it alive in a meaningful and engaging context adopts a multi-modal and interactive model that immerses the explorer into authentic and semantically-rich environments. Major objectives included: (1) survey of people; (3) collection of documents related to Emirati life in the 1960's; (4) synthesis of a prototypical historical village; (5) conceptual and software modeling of such a village; (6) construction of an exploration tree and an interaction matrix;(7) full implementation of the game followed by formal and play-testing; and (8) analysis survey of the impact of the game on people.