Within digital archaeology, an important part is centered on technologies that allow representing, or replaying, ancient environments. It is a field where scientific competences' contribution to contents makes a difference, and pedagogical repercussion are stimulating. Among the other reality technologies, the Mixed Reality, giving the possibility to experience in front of the users' eyes both static models of individual objects and entire landscapes, it is increasingly used in archaeological contexts as display technology, with different purposes such as educational, informative, or simply for entertainment. This chapter provides a high-level overview about possible orientations and uses of this technology in cultural heritage, also sketching its use in gaming within the role of gaming itself in smart communication of archaeological contents and issues.
TopBackground
Technological advances have been and are particularly vivid in the technologies reality field, and over time there have been diversified manifestations, scopes and purposes of use, while simultaneously multiplying terminologies and denominations, often confused between them.
The terms of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) define in fact substantially different concepts: simplifying, if the former is a fully virtual environment browsable in immersive navigation through special devices, in the latter there is the overlay of digital content or virtual objects (images, videos, or interactive data) on the real-world environment.
The term ‘Mixed Reality’ (MR) is more recent and defines a more complex panorama (not to be confused with the AR one), placing itself at the center of the so called “Virtuality Continuum” (Milgram & Kishino, 1994). MR is in fact the “blending of the physical world and digital world” (Bray, McCulloch, Schonning, & Zeller, 2018).
In MR virtual objects are inserted in the real context in an immersive and interactive way and, unlike the VR, the user still has real-world perception and real and virtual contents can interact with each other in real time. This happens in two possible scenarios: the first one starts with the real world in which digital objects are included, such as holograms, as if it was really there; and the second one starts with the virtual world – the digital environment is anchored to and replaces the real world to help users avoid physical objects.
Allowing people wearing a holographic device to see reconstructed 3D objects immersed in the real environment, this technology gives the possibility to experience in front of the users’ eyes both static models of individual objects and entire landscapes, and at the same time with immersive devices it is possible to hide the real world replacing it with a digital experience.
Looking at the application fields of reality technologies, considered as a whole, there are virtually no limits or boundaries: experiments, projects, tests and final products have covered areas ranging from communication to educational, marketing to medicine, from industry to travel, to human sciences and more.
MR application in the Cultural Heritage world, and especially in archaeology, are very recent, and owe a lot to the other reality technologies with much more history, also in relation to the other emergent technologies.
The use of reality technologies in archaeology is in fact widespread. Reconstruction of contexts, buildings, environments, objects in 3D has an end in itself, research and study or for exhibition purposes are quite common in archaeology for more than 20 years, but the evolution of the tools today imposes an afterthought of the applicability even for other purposes by opening the doors to new possibilities. The transition from the so-called “wow era” (Forte, 2010) to a greater awareness and maturity of the approach to the instrument and the possibilities that it encloses has been marked by the transition from the use of digitized analogue data to that of digital-born data, and it has resulted in a substantial change of perspective in the expected outcomes, from the reconstruction of static models, to the creation of a completely interactive environment.