Abstract:

Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a powerful tool for cultural heritage education enabling users to experience, explore and interact with digital representations of historical sites and cultural artifacts in an immersive and engaging way. With the growing interest in digital learning and the increasing availability of VR hardware, the potential applications of VR for cultural heritage education is becoming increasingly apparent. In recent years there have been growing interest in the investigation and adoption of VR for cultural heritage education that enable and highlights the potential benefits of VR in enhancing learning outcomes and engagement. Several research studies have focused on different aspects of VR technology such as the development of VR applications, the evaluation of user experience and the impact of VR on the learning outcomes. However, the effectiveness of VR in education depends not only on the quality of the content but also on the hardware used to deliver the experience. Selecting the appropriate VR hardware is essential for achieving the desired learning outcomes and for providing an immersive, effective and high-quality user experience. This includes evaluation of the impact of image resolution, sound quality, and hardware performance on the overall VR experience.

Selecting VR hardware involves considering several key factors:
(i) the quality of the VR experience based on the image resolution and the sound quality;
(ii) the compatibility of the hardware with the content being used;
(iii) the cost and accessibility of the hardware;
(iv) the comfort of the hardware for the users.

The paper presents the design and development of a VR application for cultural heritage education focusing on the selection of VR headsets based on the above defined factors. The VR application features a virtual tour of a cultural heritage site of the historical fortress Tsarevets in town Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. The VR application is aimed to recreate the historical monument in a virtual environment with a focus on the historical accuracy and attention to details and to provide realistic and engaging experience that enables the user to explore the monument and learn about its history and significance. The VR application is designed and developed using Unity3D game engine which allows for the creation of 3D models, textures, and animations. One of the main challenges of the VR application development is the optimization of the application for different hardware specifications. Three VR headsets with different capabilities are chosen to compare the delivered VR experience in terms of visual and sound quality and hardware performance: Vive Focus, Pimax and Quest 2. To ensure an optimal user experience, the VR application is designed to run on each of the selected headsets that requires adjusting the graphic quality and processing power to ensure a smooth and stable performance across all three headsets. The application is tested using a variety of hardware configurations including high-end gaming PCs and mobile devices to determine the hardware requirements as well as to evaluate the user experience for each headset. Based on this a relevant consideration and suggestions are presented for the technical requirements of the VR hardware for creating an optimal VR experience. The conclusions will be useful for the design, development and deployment of other VR applications utilized in the cultural heritage education.

Keywords:

Cultural heritage education, virtual reality, immersive experience, hardware requirements, VR headset.