Virtual Reality Cultural & Heritage Information Portal
19/12/2001
This project is part funded by the European Commission under Action Line IST-2000-3.1.5 of the 5th Framework Programme.
Aims and Objectives
The VRCHIP project aims to contribute to the European Commission’s community social objectives by providing an innovative and pleasurable means of accessing cultural and heritage information stored in electronic format.
The key objectives of the VRCHIP project are:
1. To gather and store cultural and heritage information in multi media electronic format.
2. To provide access to the information through an innovative and exciting virtual reality environment.
3. To assess the impact of the new facility in improving access to the data and enhancing the learning experience of people of all ages.
Overview
Cheshire County Council’s Knutsford Library and NNC Limited, a Knutsford based engineering consultancy, are collaborating on a project to create a novel means of accessing cultural and heritage information about Knutsford through a Virtual Reality Cultural Heritage and Information Portal (VRCHIP).
Knutsford library is experiencing a growing demand for cultural and heritage information about the town and its immediate surrounding area. Currently much of the required information is archived at remote locations, making access difficult and deterring people from pursuing their interest.
As part of the drive to improve services, a new, larger library is scheduled to open at the end of 2001. In designing the new library, significant emphasis has been placed on the provision of IT resources. This will allow the library to gather and store information locally in multi media electronic format, significantly enhancing the information retrieval services it is able to offer.
In an innovative move to provide easy access to the information, NNC will create virtual reality representations of Knutsford at various stages through its history and link items and activities in the virtual towns to multi media information gathered by the library.
Users will navigate their way around the virtual towns and through time and, with sound and animation of vehicles, machinery and life providing realism, become immersed in an environment which enhances the learning experience.
Availability of the first prototype is planned to coincide with the opening of the new library. Initially located in the library to allow staff to monitor usage and fine-tune the concept, the web-enabled system will be designed to operate via networks to local schools and other public facilities. The longer term objectives of the project being to place the system on the internet and expand the concept to other towns within Cheshire and beyond.
Status
This project commenced on 3 September 2001. Progress has been made in defining the methodologies which will be adopted for the project.
