Interaction with replicas of small pieces: using complementary technologies to maximize visitors' experience

Current technologies for digitizing artifacts allow us to create compelling virtual installations, in which visitors learn about them through playing and exploring virtual proxies. However, different technologies enhance certain types of information and preclude other usages. In this paper, we show how one can create complementary installations in order to enhance the use of available information of small artifacts. Our case study is a set of small gold artifacts at the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia. We collected from each piece high-resolution 3D scans at different levels of detail, high resolution images, sound, text, and contextual images. With this information, we created a traditional multimedia installation for the computer room at the Museum, a web site for remote visitors through the Internet, and finally a novel haptic and stereo display interface that allows visitors to touch, observe in stereo, locate themselves inside the Museum, and hear the sound of an artifact when it is struck with a virtual stylus. In this paper, we show how one can develop these experiences and how they complement each other. We will also present an early evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses.