Virtual Reality (VR) is an industry where heavy investments were made in recent years, it is also... more Virtual Reality (VR) is an industry where heavy investments were made in recent years, it is also a revived research interest both internationally and within China due to the development of usable hardware by technology giants. In China, VR has seen an explosion of startups, and has attracted venture capital investments, but has also seen subsequent implosions and failures largely due to marketing hypes, mismanaged expectations, and definitely an unsustainable VR business model. There are presently over 100 types of VR devices, ranging from the low to the higher end equipment in the mass market which could potentially diversify application areas. However, a lack of developmental experience, usability studies, adjustments to socialcultural differences, and unsustainability in content generation and development may be seen as an issue within China’s market. These observed issues are broad and challenging, which perhaps the VR academic community may have a stronger foothold from which ...
Cultural heritage presents both challenges and opportunities for the adoption and use of deep lea... more Cultural heritage presents both challenges and opportunities for the adoption and use of deep learning in 3D digitisation and digitalisation endeavours. While unique features in terms of the identity of artefacts are important factors that can contribute to training performance in deep learning algorithms, challenges remain with regards to the laborious efforts in our ability to obtain adequate datasets that would both provide for the diversity of imageries, and across the range of multi-facet images for each object in use. One solution, and perhaps an important step towards the broader applicability of deep learning in the field of digital heritage is the fusion of both real and virtual datasets via the automated creation of diverse datasets that covers multiple views of individual objects over a range of diversified objects in the training pipeline, all facilitated by closerange photogrammetry generated 3D objects. The question is the ratio of the combination of real and synthetic...
Virtual Reality (VR), a medium which can create alternate or representations of reality, could po... more Virtual Reality (VR), a medium which can create alternate or representations of reality, could potentially be used for triggering memory recollections by connecting users with their past. Comparing to commonly-used media within museum such as photos and videos, VR is distinct because of its ability to move beyond the confines of time and space, by enabling users to be immersed in the reconstructed context and allowing them to take charge of the environment by interacting with objects, navigating the environment, and evolving the narratives. In this paper, we compared audience experiences of cultural heritage (CH) between 360-degree video recordings and Virtual Environments to investigate the capacity of these two types of media for coordinating the audience’s memory of the past. The findings will help guide the future design and evaluation of VR as a medium for communicating CH.
This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiated conversations and engage... more This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiated conversations and engage in interactions in a hybrid virtual environment using a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) devices. The research was done in the 'spirit of the Ancient Silk Road' where trade brought in exchange of ideas, cultural influence and cross-border communications. The notion of a 21 st century Silk Road is necessarily digital, over the Internet and based around 3D cultural heritage objects. Digi-Capital's Report forecasts the revenue of AR and VR to be US$150b by 2020. We projected that VR and AR will become pervasive, much like the Social Web and the universal ubiquity of mobile devices (smartphones and wearables). Here, we conducted a user study exploring users' acceptance of the use of hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage, and investigated the social nature of multiple co-located user interaction. We adapted the UTAUT questionnaire in our experiment and found that social influence has positive effects on performance expectancy and effort expectancy, which generate positive effects on user behavioural intention. This study pioneers the future design and use of hybrid VR and AR technology in cultural heritage specifically, and in other application areas generally by highlighting the significant role that social influence plays in enhancing users' behavioural intention facilitated by different immersive devices.
Our article maps the well-being of the adoption and use of digital technologies in museums in Chi... more Our article maps the well-being of the adoption and use of digital technologies in museums in China. Digital technologies used here are termed ‘cultural technology’ in top-level national policies for the creative cultural industry, with culture and heritage at the core of all such activities. Our investigation aims to understand the present state of adoption and use of cultural technologies with the goal of identifying limitations so as to provide a roadmap for the informed design and development of museum-based digital exhibits that are appropriate for visitors. Whilst our study is focused on China's museums, our evaluation model and lessons learned can be used as comparative studies for museums globally. This highlights the novelty of our article, for the scale of which we carried out our evaluation has never been conducted before. We travelled 22 sites over 15 cities and collected over 800 samples of data. We evaluated 36 digital systems used by over 800 visitors and observed how users interacted and engaged with the systems with a record of 21 variables related to the length of interaction, engagement, quality of contents and types of systems, age groups, sexes, and the number of participants and whether they were individuals or in groups. Our investigation revealed important findings in both digital systems and visitor engagement.
Virtual Reality (VR) is an industry where heavy investments were made in recent years, it is also... more Virtual Reality (VR) is an industry where heavy investments were made in recent years, it is also a revived research interest both internationally and within China due to the development of usable hardware by technology giants. In China, VR has seen an explosion of startups, and has attracted venture capital investments, but has also seen subsequent implosions and failures largely due to marketing hypes, mismanaged expectations, and definitely an unsustainable VR business model. There are presently over 100 types of VR devices, ranging from the low to the higher end equipment in the mass market which could potentially diversify application areas. However, a lack of developmental experience, usability studies, adjustments to socialcultural differences, and unsustainability in content generation and development may be seen as an issue within China’s market. These observed issues are broad and challenging, which perhaps the VR academic community may have a stronger foothold from which ...
Cultural heritage presents both challenges and opportunities for the adoption and use of deep lea... more Cultural heritage presents both challenges and opportunities for the adoption and use of deep learning in 3D digitisation and digitalisation endeavours. While unique features in terms of the identity of artefacts are important factors that can contribute to training performance in deep learning algorithms, challenges remain with regards to the laborious efforts in our ability to obtain adequate datasets that would both provide for the diversity of imageries, and across the range of multi-facet images for each object in use. One solution, and perhaps an important step towards the broader applicability of deep learning in the field of digital heritage is the fusion of both real and virtual datasets via the automated creation of diverse datasets that covers multiple views of individual objects over a range of diversified objects in the training pipeline, all facilitated by closerange photogrammetry generated 3D objects. The question is the ratio of the combination of real and synthetic...
Virtual Reality (VR), a medium which can create alternate or representations of reality, could po... more Virtual Reality (VR), a medium which can create alternate or representations of reality, could potentially be used for triggering memory recollections by connecting users with their past. Comparing to commonly-used media within museum such as photos and videos, VR is distinct because of its ability to move beyond the confines of time and space, by enabling users to be immersed in the reconstructed context and allowing them to take charge of the environment by interacting with objects, navigating the environment, and evolving the narratives. In this paper, we compared audience experiences of cultural heritage (CH) between 360-degree video recordings and Virtual Environments to investigate the capacity of these two types of media for coordinating the audience’s memory of the past. The findings will help guide the future design and evaluation of VR as a medium for communicating CH.
This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiated conversations and engage... more This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiated conversations and engage in interactions in a hybrid virtual environment using a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) devices. The research was done in the 'spirit of the Ancient Silk Road' where trade brought in exchange of ideas, cultural influence and cross-border communications. The notion of a 21 st century Silk Road is necessarily digital, over the Internet and based around 3D cultural heritage objects. Digi-Capital's Report forecasts the revenue of AR and VR to be US$150b by 2020. We projected that VR and AR will become pervasive, much like the Social Web and the universal ubiquity of mobile devices (smartphones and wearables). Here, we conducted a user study exploring users' acceptance of the use of hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage, and investigated the social nature of multiple co-located user interaction. We adapted the UTAUT questionnaire in our experiment and found that social influence has positive effects on performance expectancy and effort expectancy, which generate positive effects on user behavioural intention. This study pioneers the future design and use of hybrid VR and AR technology in cultural heritage specifically, and in other application areas generally by highlighting the significant role that social influence plays in enhancing users' behavioural intention facilitated by different immersive devices.
Our article maps the well-being of the adoption and use of digital technologies in museums in Chi... more Our article maps the well-being of the adoption and use of digital technologies in museums in China. Digital technologies used here are termed ‘cultural technology’ in top-level national policies for the creative cultural industry, with culture and heritage at the core of all such activities. Our investigation aims to understand the present state of adoption and use of cultural technologies with the goal of identifying limitations so as to provide a roadmap for the informed design and development of museum-based digital exhibits that are appropriate for visitors. Whilst our study is focused on China's museums, our evaluation model and lessons learned can be used as comparative studies for museums globally. This highlights the novelty of our article, for the scale of which we carried out our evaluation has never been conducted before. We travelled 22 sites over 15 cities and collected over 800 samples of data. We evaluated 36 digital systems used by over 800 visitors and observed how users interacted and engaged with the systems with a record of 21 variables related to the length of interaction, engagement, quality of contents and types of systems, age groups, sexes, and the number of participants and whether they were individuals or in groups. Our investigation revealed important findings in both digital systems and visitor engagement.
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Papers by Shengdan Cai
Publications by Shengdan Cai