Exploring Canons & Cathedrals with Open Virtual Worlds
The Recreation of St Andrews Cathedral, St Andrews Day, 1318
S Kennedy∗ , R Fawcett† , A Miller∗ , L Dow∗ , R Sweetman‡ , A Field∗ , A Campbell∗ , I Oliver∗ J. McCaffery∗ and C Allison∗
∗ School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews Email: see http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/directory†
† School of Art History, University of St Andrews Email: rf41@st-andrews.ac.uk† ,
‡ School of Classics, University of St Andrews Email: rs43@st-andrews.ac.uk‡ ,
Abstract—St Andrews Cathedral is located on the East Coast of
Scotland. Construction started in 1160 and spanned Romanesque and
Gothic architectural styles. It was consecrated in 1318, four years after
the battle of Bannockburn in the presence of King Robert I. For several
hundred years, the Cathedral was one of the most important religious
buildings in Europe and the centre of religious life in Scotland. During the
Reformation, John Knox himself lead reformers in divesting the Cathedral
of all its finery. Thereafter it fell into disuse and decline. Today the remains
hint at its former glory. Here the use of Open Virtual Worlds (OVW)
to support new modes of engagement with cultural heritage is presented
through the example of St Andrews Cathedral.
Open Virtual Worlds offer an extensible collaborative environment
for developing historical scenes against which background material and
intangible aspects of cultural heritage associated with a site may be
explored. They offer the potential to reconstruct within a 3D computer
environment both the physical structures of the past and important
aspects of the lighting, sounds and lifestyles that once existed within
those structures. Bringing together architecture, sculpture, illumination,
stained-glass, music, procession and lighting into a scene, which can be
explored from multiple spatial perspectives enables holistic appreciations
to be developed.
I.
I NTRODUCTION
For over four hundred years St Andrews Cathedral stood at the
centre of Scotland’s religious and political life, yet today there are
insufficient remains for the spectacle of the building in its prime to
be obvious. Work on creating a digital recreation started in 2009
as a collaboration between computer scientists, archaeologists and
historians. The goal was to develop a 3D model of the Cathedral
informed by physical evidence, scholarship and expert interpretation.
In so doing appreciation of the Cathedral’s form previously confined
to the minds of scholars would become accessible to new audiences.
The significance of the Cathedral lies not only in the stonework
but also the function that it performed, the people who lived in it
and history that it was part of. The OVW environment the model
is located within (Open Simulator) enables the modelling of both
material culture: the surrounding landscape, architecture, fixtures and
paintings and intangible culture: the interplay of light, weather and
architecture; sounds of chant and the routines of the Opus Dei, hence
virtual visitors experience medieval religious life.
A virtual visitor is represented in world by the proxy of an
Avatar, which they control much as a user would in a computer game
having a choice of both first (Call of Duty and Crysis) and third
person (Tomb Raider and Resident Evil) perspectives. Users control
where the avatar goes, looks and interacts using interfaces and digital
literacies developed playing games like Call of Duty, thereby making
cultural heritage accessible in powerful new ways.
The environment is fully programmable enabling visitors to
participate in historic scenes whilst hearing the stories of historic
characters they meet such as Bishop William de Lamberton, King
Robert I, the Cannons of the Cathedral and visiting pilgrims. The
model itself provides a 3D interface to the Web; text, video and
social media resources, which are accessed through clicking on
Fig. 1.
Internal view towards Choir St Andrews Day 1318.
hotspots. Thus the reconstruction introduces the visitor to wider
historic narratives and acts as a 3D interface to relevant web resources.
The reconstruction has been deployed in diverse scenarios. It
is accessible as a free live Internet service that users connect to
worldwide (openvirtualworlds.org/start); as an installation located in
a museum with panoramic screen, natural movement control and
immersive sound; and as a portable multi user exhibition, which has
been used in schools, science centres, festivals and museums. This
flexibility of deployment makes an important contribution to Cultural
Heritage [1], by offering the potential of mass participation in the
creation and propagation of cultural heritage.
The paper is organised into the following four sections: the site
and subject of the recreation, the OVW technology used, the methodology applied and real world scenarios where the reconstructions have
been deployed and used are described.
Fig. 2.
Arial View of Cathedral and Cloister remains in grounds 2011
II. S T A NDREWS C ATHEDRAL S ITE :
NARRATIVES FROM I NDEPENDENCE TO THE R EFORMATION
St Andrews Cathedral occupies a site used for worship since the
8th Century AD. Work on the Cathedral began around 1160 and was
completed nearly 150 years later (the west faade and parts of the
nave collapsed in a storm around 1270). It was finally consecrated in
1318 four years after the battle of Bannockburn and in the presence
of King Robert I of Scotland. St Andrews Cathedral was in its prime,
the centre of Scotland’s religious life, its largest and most magnificent
church. In 1378 the Cathedral suffered a significant fire prompting
a reworking of many of its features including the West and East
End windows. Its presence was the catalyst for the foundation of
a university at St Andrews in the early fifteenth century [2], which
remains an important seat of learning to this day. In 1561 following
the Scottish reformation the Cathedral was abandoned by the Bishops
and replaced by the parish church as the chief place of worship.
The former headquarters of the Scottish Church was left to fall into
ruin, with much of its stone being used in the construction of town
dwellings.
During its time the Cathedral was central to Scottish personalities
and history. St Andrews was the highest ranking Scottish see. The
establishment of Augustinian Cannons followed by the initiation of
building work by Bishop Ernald reflected integration with the European church, economic dynamism and decline of the Celtic Church.
The diocese funded Robert Bruce during the Wars of Independence.
Its Bishop William de Lamberton contributed to the formulation of
the Declaration of Arbroath, a central document in the formation of
Scottish Nationhood. Isabella, sister of Donnchadh IV, last Pictish
Earl of Fife, crowned Bruce King. John Knox personally lead his
congregation against the Cathedral’s finery and following the murder
of Cardinal Beaton the first Scottish protestant congregation was
established in the Bishop’s palace.
The date chosen for the reconstruction was 1318, the year of its
consecration. Important fragments of the remain. The east gable of the
presbytery, where the relics of St Andrew were purported to be kept,
along with the south wall of the nave, and the majestic West Entrance
all point to the Cathedral’s former majesty. The cloister retains its
ruined chapter house and stone-vaulted under crofts. Consequently,
much evidence of the Cathedral’s form exists. An aerial view of the
current monument is shown in fig. 2 and a view from the nave looking
towards the choir in fig. 3.
The reconstruction process involved collaboration between computer scientists, archaeologists and art historians. It drew upon existing resources relating to the Cathedral: surviving architecture on site,
Fig. 3.
Site visit showing View from Knave to Choir
architectural fragments both in the museum and reused throughout the
town, the pre existing work of medieval architectural historians [3],
[2] along with architectural drawings and artistic impressions of the
Cathedral’s original appearance. These resources were drawn upon
to re-construct the Cathedral and surrounding buildings including the
earlier church of St Regulus.
III.
A P LATFORM FOR V IRTUAL R ECREATION
Virtual worlds are distributed 3D systems which enable users to
create and edit their own content whilst the system is live. The user
interfaces, both for navigation and modelling are intuitive and easy to
use. This enables domain experts and technical people to collaborate
together in the creation of historic scenes.
Open Simulator (OpenSim) is a freely available OVW environment which can be used to develop [4] and deliver historical
reconstructions [5] and serious games. It is distributed under a creative
commons attribution licence, which gives considerable flexibility
to extend its functionality and to deploy it in different scenarios.
OpenSim is an application server, which integrates with the World
Wide Web. At the heart of an OpenSim application is an extensible,
mutable, 3D environment users inhabit through the proxy of an
avatar. Other users are able to see the avatar’s actions and engage in
synchronous communication through movement, gestures, text chat,
and voice. This projection of presence enables both collaborative
exploration.
An OpenSim OVW is made up of three discrete components: the
client, the simulations and services.
Simulations may model the weather, the physical structure of
a space, the actions of avatars and interactions with other Internet
resources. The amount, colour and movement of clouds, the colour
opacity and reflectivity of water, visibility and mist, lighting and the
presence of shadows as well as the time of day are all configurable.
The surface of the region may be defined using external real world
data and textures applied to give the impression of grassy plains, rocky
hills, deserts or forests. The structure of the architecture, fittings and
furnishings of buildings may be constructed in-world out of primitives
(prims) or imported as meshes.
The movement and appearance of avatars is customizable. Inworld tools provide control over body shape, size and colouring as
well as the garments that are worn. More control is achieved by
using external modelling programs to design clothing, body shapes
and animations. Libraries of clothes, body shapes and animations may
be freely imported and exported. Avatars may also represent in world
Non Player Characters (NPC), that have preprogrammed responses
Fig. 4. St Andrews Cathedral recreation set on the sunny St Andrews day afternoon 1318, showing the West Gate in the foreground and ships in the background.
to events and artificial intelligence. The libopenmetaverse [6] library
provides support for creating avatar bots controlled remotely by a
programmable client.
in the past, including material culture (movable and immovable heritage), environment, landscape, customs, and
general cultural significance.
Soundscapes are created by streaming to virtual locations, clips
may be embedded in objects and played in response to events. Voice
over IP is used for peer to peer voice chat. Media textures may be
attached to prims allowing media to be streamed and displayed on the
Prim surface. Web pages can also be embedded on a surface and set
to point at a web address. Web pages may be loaded into a browser
when events trigger scripts embedded in objects. OpenSim is written
in C# and runs over the .net framework or mono. In world scripting
is supported in LSL and C#, this allows Avatars or other objects
to respond to events, such as proximity, being touched or receiving
messages on a chat channel. Regions modules allow for powerful
OVW applications to be created programmatically [7].
At the heart of the recreation process lies collaboration between
experts in the archaeology and history of the monument, graphical
designers capable of developing 3D models which match the vision of
the historians and computer scientists who develop delivery systems.
The OVW provides an environment which facilitates such collaboration. Iterations of the model can be viewed and evaluated by domain
experts who in turn give direction to developers.
The server architecture supports multiple deployment scenarios
including: mobile access, installations, institutional services and Internet access. The user controls the environment through keyboard
and mouse, gestures, games controllers, or touch screens. Scenes are
viewed in stereoscopic 3D through an Oculus Rift headset, on a tablet,
on a high definition screen or on a synchronised multi projection
surface as part of an installation. The flexible architecture and multiple
control modes mean many use cases are supported.
The reconstruction draws upon existing scholarship in medieval
religious buildings, medieval books and medieval music. Contextualisation of surviving architecture on the site and reference to
surviving features on other sites inform the reconstruction. Research
into personalities contemporaneous with the Cathedral and modes of
dress inform the creation of in world characters.
Support for modelling terrain architecture, sculptures and furnishings, as well as intangible elements of cultural heritage such
as music and the interactions between people make OVWs an
attractive platform for multi-faceted recreations of historic scenes that
allow individual pieces of culture to be placed within context and
understood holistically.
IV.
R ECREATING THE C ATHEDRAL’ S FORMER MAJESTY.
The virtual St Andrews Cathedral was envisaged originally as
a tool for learning in Schools and Universities. As such its has
been used as part of programs of study complementing traditional
scholarship and visits to the physical site. This work goes beyond
3D modelling and reconstruction to aim at the recreation of an
historic scene, we attempt Virtual Recreation as defined by the Seville
Charter [8].
Virtual Recreation: this involves using a virtual model to
visually recover an archaeological site at a given moment
A number of discrete but interconnected steps make up the
process of reconstruction: research, setting the scene, landscaping,
architecture, furnishings and fittings, soundscape, character development, linkages to web and social media as well as the development
scenarios.
Real world ordnance survey point heights provided the framework
for the terrain. The OS coordinates for the monument were identified;
the point heights were then scaled to minimize quantization error and
loaded into a bit map image file. The map was then transformed
using cubic interpolation from one point per 10 meter to one point
per meter. The image map was then loaded into the OpenSim region.
The in world height and the scale of the land were then adjusted to
agree with the real world heights.
The process of reconstructing the architecture was divided into
three substages: establishing scale, layout and orientation; developing
external form; and establishing the internal form and features. Each
was iterative. Initial discussions identified evidence to work from and
a plan for development, regular meetings between developers and
historians were held. During the meetings virtual tours of the virtual
building site were conducted and discussions held as to the correctness
and appropriateness of the current content.
The first stage was to create or locate scale architectural drawings
of floor plans, elevations and details. The floor plans were imported
as an image, laid on the ground and scaled to provide a blue print
Fig. 5.
Fig. 8.
Fig. 12.
The Geddy view of St Andrews
The East End
Nave Vaulting Cantebury
Fig. 9.
Fig. 6.
Scale Floor Plan
Gothic Window
Fig. 13.
Fig. 10.
Fig. 7.
Procession
Cloister in Durham
for the location of walls, doors and other features. Primitives were
created and shaped to the appropriate size for walls and floors, with
spaces being left for windows, doors and other features. Appropriate
textures are applied to give an authentic look.
The Geddy view, drawn in 1540 (fig. 5) provides context. The
church was laid out in a cross with the length running from East to the
West. A scale plan of the Cathedral (fig. 6), a site plan, reconstruction
sketches (fig. 7), site photographs (fig. 2) and observations (fig. 3)
provided evidence for the reconstruction.
Issues addressed in establishing the external form of the building
include the structure of the East and West ends, the form of the win-
2D Sketch
Fig. 11.
Ripon
Fig. 14.
Choir
dows along the length of the choir and nave and the structure of the
cloister area. Reconstruction work was based on existing drawings,
themselves based on the evaluation of on site physical evidence and
reference to surviving features in churches developed in the same
architectural style. A series of two dimensional elevations guided
proportions. Reference was made to sketches of Gothic window
tracery (fig. 9), buttresses and to surviving features in Jedburgh, Elgin
and Glasgow Cathedrals.
A photograph of the remaining East End is shown in fig. 16.
This shows a lower tier of three windows with a large upper window.
This configuration was established after the fire of 1378. Previously,
there were three tiers as shown in fig. 18. During the construction
of the Cathedral architectural tastes changed from Romanesque to
Gothic. This is reflected in the form of the nave windows. Towards
the west these have simple rounded arches, towards the east the arch
is pointed and the windows contain a delicate Y shaped tracery as
shown in fig. 17.
presses and lecterns in the Choir, dining areas and Chapter house.
In the exhibition visitors can learn about how books were created in
the middle ages, gain access to digital copies of rare and valuable
books and charters and interact with models of books that were held
in the Cathedral’s library. They are able to view a videos about book
making and to read digitisations of three of the Cathedral’s books.
The West End was the ceremonial entrance to the Cathedral
used only on special occasions. It consists of a ‘magnificent doorway framed by five receding orders of arches, is flanked by tall
polygonal turrets.... A stone-vaulted porch in front of the doorway
(now gone) stretched across the west front’ [9]. Placement and size
of the windows in the reconstructed West entrance went through
several iterations before arriving at a configuration which reconciled
surviving architecture, correct styling and placement in relation to the
surviving west port vestibule. An external view is shown in fig. 4.
Soundscape: Sound is streamed into the virtual cathedral to
provide a realistic audio backdrop. The University of St Andrews
choir recorded plainsong chants appropriate for an Augustinian house
of that period. With a microphone and headphones visitors may
communicate with each other through voice chat (facilitated by a
Freeswitch IP telephony server) even when in different physical
locations. Specific sound clips are embedded in the environment to
be triggered by appropriate avatar actions. For example a door creaks
when opened, a NPC answers a question and the fountain bubbles.
Music, commentaries and explanations may be accessed through an
embedded web interface. Visitors to the Cathedral are able to hear a
soundtrack of music appropriate to the time and place.
The outline of the cloister is clearly discernible from above in
fig. 2. The surviving cloister at Durham (fig. 13) provided a model we
worked from. The known position of the Cathedral windows provided
a guide for the height of the cloister. Located in the cloister is a well.
The canons eating (fig. 24) and sleeping quarters (fig. 22), the kitchens
(fig. 21) and the Chapter house (fig. 23) can all be accessed from the
cloisters. A view from the cloister garden is shown in fig. 17.
The internal architectural features were developed from evaluating
existing 2D reconstruction drawings for example fig. 7, surveying
surviving features at the site and with reference to architecture at
Canterbury (fig. 12), Jedburgh, Ripon Minster (fig. 11) and Durham
Cathedral’s cloisters (fig. 13).
In recreating the pillars; the base, the columns and how the finial
connects the column to vaulting were all considered. The bases of
the transept Pillars survive in place and there are surviving pieces of
pillars and bases in the Cathedral museum. The pillars at the Cathedral
in Ripon (fig. 11) provide a good model for how St Andrews’ pillars
would have looked. The pillars in the transept, choir and knave differ
in style and detail. The Choir pillars are more decorative than the nave
reflecting the higher prestige associated with access to these parts.
The vaulting was in the Gothic style, similar to that in the nave at
Canterbury Cathedral (fig. 12). Technically it was difficult to model
this as the shapes are difficult to arrive at from OpenSim primitives.
Consequently, they were created in a 3D modelling program (Blender)
and imported.
The choir section contains a tri-foil of surrounding arches as does
the choir at Ripon fig. 11. The choir screens played both a decorative
and functional role. The relics of St Andrews were purported to
be located within the reliquary to the east of the choir. Heights
of windows, positioning of the screen and the magnificent vaulted
ceiling are all features of this part of the building, captured in the
reconstruction fig. 18.
The location of the stairs to the refectory was investigated as the
exact position was not clear from surviving architecture. The position
adopted makes the most sense in providing access to the well, cloister,
kitchen and refectory. The view from the night stair into the transept
is shown in fig. 19.
Putting Books back in the Cathedral: Books and manuscripts
would have been central to monastery life. The book presses are at the
junction between the Cathedral and cloisters. By 1400 the Cathedral
had a library of some 100 books. This project has created a model
of a Scriptorium, an in-world exhibition of books in the Cathedral
and has placed models of appropriate books in the Scriptorium, book
A. Characters and Scenes
Non Player Characters (NPCs) appear as avatars and may be
programmed to follow scripted behaviour (figs. 29, 28) and to respond
to questions. Scripts are placed within the characters, which enable
them to react to events. For example upon being approached by an
avatar they greet them by name, respond to questions and follow
routine tasks. For St Andrews Cathedral models of King Robert
I, Bishop William de Lamberton, Prior John De Forfar, Augustinian Canons, pilgrims and peasants have been developed. For each
character, appropriate physical models, clothes and accessories have
been researched, designed and created. The characters each have a
background and a story to tell.
The characters follow a timetable of events. For example, at
8:00am, there is Morrow Mass. At that time, all of the NPCs
representing the Augustinian Canons change into suitable clothing,
navigate to suitable locations, and are then animated into realistic
stances suitable to their individual character during the mass. By following timetables of such events based upon the Monastic Horarium
according to the Regularis Concordia, NPCs within the Cathedral add
to the tangibility of the reconstruction by providing realistic actions
and movements of the characters that would have been present during
everyday life in the Cathedral.
Many of the events are controlled through the use of a graph that
is overlaid within the Cathedral, representing both navigational way
points and strategic positions throughout the Cathedral, as shown in
fig. 29. Normally invisible the paths can be made visible for editing.
The graph greatly simplifies the process of scripting the movement
of NPCs around the Cathedral, by making use of Dijkstras routing
algorithm as a way of finding short paths to target positions. This
allows NPCs to navigate by being told where to be rather than how
to get there. The graph can be fully edited from within the Cathedral
itself allowing for the quick and accurate mapping out of way-points.
NPCs follow simple scripts that allow them to hold conversations
with users, responding in both a textual and audible format. These
scripts work on a keyword basis, allowing sentences about certain
topics to trigger an automated response. The user chooses responses
which traverse a predefined conversation tree. They can follow
the path that they are most interested in. This allows for varied
conversations whilst enabling detailing responses and keeps script
authoring simple.
Fig. 15.
Robert Bruce in St Andrews Transepts
Fig. 17.
Cathedral Cloisters
Fig. 16.
View from East End as the sun sets
Fig. 18.
Internal view to East
Fig. 19.
Transept from night stair
Fig. 20.
The Chapter House
Fig. 21.
Cathedral Kitchens
Fig. 22.
Sleeping quarters
Fig. 23.
Warming house
Fig. 24.
Cloister dining area
Fig. 25.
Book Exhibition
B. Summary and Reflections on the Virtual Recreation process
The recreation is based upon the historic record. Evidence from
remaining architecture, established scholarship and informed interpretation are used. The recreation process used was iterative and
development guided by domain experts, resulting in an authentic
reconstruction and transparent design process; as documented in this
paper. The process of virtual recreation has itself been enlightening:
The ability to walk around the building whilst under
construction and to view the model from a multitude of
viewpoints allows the placement of features that are missing
from the archaeological record to be explored and tested
from the perspective of spacial dynamics. This is particu-
larly relevant to the placement of doors, the direction of
stairways and establishing the function of rooms. These
aspects can be considered in an holistic way adding insights
gleaned from the reconstruction to the existing knowledge
base. Dr Rebecca Sweetman, Classics, University of St
Andrews
From the historians perspective the reconstruction of the
Cathedral involves both the mental reconstruction of modified and lost features, and the establishment of the range of
ways in which buildings that represent a spirituality alien
to modern times were intended to function. As such it offers
an invaluable academic discipline for those involved in
Fig. 26.
Editing pathways in scriptorium
Fig. 27.
Monks at work in scriptorium
the reconstruction, providing eminently practical ways of
testing theories and assumptions. It is then of the greatest
value for conveying more widely the understanding that has
been gained. Prof. Richard Fawcett, Art History, University
of St Andrews
V. U SE C ONTEXTS AND EVALUATION
Over the last few years we have gained experience of using the
Cathedral reconstruction in several different contexts. The reconstruction started as a summer project for several Masters students. It
has been used as part of degree accredited university courses for
undergraduate history and classics courses, in a local unit of the
curriculum for year 11 students in a local Secondary school, for
all students in a local primary school, as part of a public science
exhibition at Dundee Science centre and public events at St Andrews
University. There has also been TV and press coverage enabling
images of the reconstruction to reach wider audiences.
The Cathedral is hosted on the Apollo OVW server and is
accessible over the Internet through a Virtual World client. The Apollo
server contains several other reconstructions including Linlithgow
Palace, a pre clearance Highland village, 16th century Salt Pans and
a sixth century Greek Basilica. A second instantiation is on the OS
GRID.
There are circumstances when it is not possible to access the
Internet, for example when doing an exhibition in a remote location
or in a school. However, using OpenSim this can be overcome by
running a local server and connecting clients to it. To enable outreach
work we have created a portable exhibition which can be set up in a
public space for workshops and classes. This consists of five public
facing clients in small form factor PCs equiped with NVidia 680
GPUs and HD 1080p displays, i5 Ivybridge processors and 8 GB
of RAM. The server is an i7 with 16GB of RAM and can run 30
regions. The user interface utilized X - Box controllers along with
keyboards and mice.
A terminal was used for monitoring performance and controlling
the server. During sessions network traffic traces were captured, along
with application load inferred from server frame times and frames per
second, traces of memory usage. Connection to the server via WiFi
was supported. Several laptops were used to run in world characters
that would interact with visitors’ avatars along with a tablet demoing a
touch screen interface. Several historic characters were created, these
included: Bishop William de Lamberton, King Robert the Bruce, an
Augustinian Cannon and the Old Grey Lady a ghost reported to haunt
the Cathedral.
The reconstruction of St Andrews Cathedral was part of the
Sensation exhibition at Dundee Science Centre over the weekend of
16th, 17th and 18th of March 2012. The exhibition was well attended
by both local schools and the general public. On Friday several groups
of students from local primary schools visited and during Saturday
Fig. 28.
Morrow mass in the Choir
and Sunday there were over 800 visitors representing a wide range of
ages and backgrounds. Teachers and pupils who attended this Create
and Inspire event expressed an interest in using it in their own schools.
Activities included: free form site exploration; a guided tour by
a virtual character; a guided tour by a real world person; a treasure
trail/task oriented quest; and playing games of tag or hide and seek
against the backdrop of the Cathedral. The experience was evaluated
in three ways: use of the system was passvily observed, a visitors
book was provided for free form feedback and some questionnaires
were distributed.
It was clear throughout that people were attracted to the exhibit
and found it easy to use, engaging and educational. All ages were able
to quickly master the user interface and navigate the environment with
a few seconds instruction. School children were particularly adept
at using the game controllers The feedback received was strongly
positive. Some forty comments were left in the visitors book a
representative sample is given below:
male primary school student: the best place I have ever
been love everything inside and will be looking forward to
coming back3 female primary school students: very detailed
and interesting. good game. we like Robert the Bruce :)
parent: kids were very interested and enjoyed being able to
interact with the Cathedral, the controllers were a medium
that made it easy for them to do this family group: Fantastic
work. Can’t wait to visit St Andrews again to look at the
Cathedral ruins STEM ambassador: Very interesting would
be great to be shown in schools
Over three days hundreds of people interacted with the model.
They all took something positive from the experience, whether they
were a university lecturer or a primary school student. Embedding the
reconstruction within an OVW created a new perspective on Scottish
history and made it accessible across the generations. Many expressed
a desire to follow up the experience through visiting the ruins or to
connect from home to explore in greater detail.
A second example was at a local secondary school as part of the
social studies local unit of the Curriculum for Excellence. The unit
encouraged students to investigate local history. Activities included
an initial talk about archaeology and the history of the Cathedral, a
session with the virtual Cathedral, two visits to the Cathedral and a
final in class session with a box of relevant artefacts. The students
created a portfolio of materials, including drawings, pilgrim’s badges
and written accounts of imagined pilgrimages to the Cathedral.
The portable exhibition was set up in the school library for three
days. Individual sessions were run for classes and it was open for
students to use during breaks and at lunchtime. During the classes
groups of 4-6 students sat around each terminal. Each group had a
Fig. 29.
Exploring the Reliquary from the school library.
Fig. 30.
Modern ”pilgrims” in the Nave during school visit. Fig. 31.
quest to complete which involved finding different locations within
the Cathedral and talking to an avatar representing Robert the Bruce.
On entering the room there was palpable excitement at the
prospect of the coming session. The majority of students came
equipped with digital literacies that enabled them to use the x-box
controllers to explore the Cathedral reconstruction. The few students
who did not have experience with x-box controllers were able to
quickly learn how to explore using the avatar often with help from
their peers.
Having a group of people sharing a work station to achieve a
common task meant that they had to co-operate together and negotiate
how to share control. This was valuable in developing team working
skills. Because the students were using a shared server, they were
able to see and interact with other groups’ avatars. This added to
excitement and engagement with the activity. Interacting with Robert
the Bruce was a second highlight of the event. Through following
the quest, students were able to learn about the physicality of the
Cathedral, to gain a respect for the achievement of such a magnificent
building existing 700 years ago and reflect on what it was like to visit
the Cathedral in its prime.
The quest had an important role in providing structure to the
exploration. Although there was a tendency to become distracted
from this, for example flying to explore the edges of the simulation
rather than the Cathedral or engaging in irrelevant chat, appropriate
supervision addressed this and refocussed the students. The critical
factor in the success of the educational experience was the integration
of exploration of the model with a wider educational agenda. It helped
stimulate investigation and motivate engagement in other activities.
Students were able to make connections between exploration of the
model, Cathedral visits and their research into pilgrims journeys.
VI.
C ONCLUSION
Open Virtual Worlds provide a flexible platform offering holistic
support to the development and deployment of distributed interactive
3D applications. These are particularly appropriate for developing
historic reconstructions related to the promotion of cultural heritage as
they facilitate cooperation and collaboration during the development
process and provide an immersive environment upon deployment.
This allows technical experts and domain scholars to collaborate in
the creation of historically accurate environments and allows both
physical and intangible aspects of the past to be modelled.
Virtual worlds provide an interactive 3D environment users can
explore and shape through the proxy of an avatar. They provide
a framework which may be used to develop 3D applications. The
Descriptions.
framework enables distributed access through virtual world clients
and collaborative working enriched through the sense of presence
achieved with avatars. Whilst the cost of the service provided by
Second Life, the most populace virtual world, limits the scale of
reconstructions, the OpenSim server enables individuals and organisations to provide their own service and even to create an interconnected
web of reconstructions through a hyper grid. Here it is possible to
teleport avatars from place to place much as it is possible to jump
around the web using hyper links.
In the 3D space the speed of technological change has led to
inverted digital literacies. Children are able to explore 3D spaces using
games controllers sometimes before they are able to spell their own
name. The ability to configure OVWs in a spectrum of configurations
ranging from client server web applications to personalized sandboxes
combined with their flexibility in supporting multiple user interfaces
including traditional key board and mouse, games controllers and
touch free gesture control combine to allow a reconstruction to be
deployed in a range of contexts.
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