Sense of place in immersive architectural virtual heritage environment

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978-1-4673-8993-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Sense of Place in Immersive
Architectural Virtual Heritage Environment
Izham Ghani
Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying
Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Perak
Perak, Malaysia
izham025@perak.uitm.edu.my
Ahmad Rafi, Peter Woods
Faculty of Creative Multimedia
Multimedia University
Selangor, Malaysia
{rafi, woods}@mmu.edu.my
Abstract—Virtualization of architectural heritage elements is
increasingly popular as evident in some of the current published
virtual heritage (VH) projects and applications. One of the
important approaches that could potentially portray the richness
of the architectural heritage is highlighting the sense of place. It
is believed that the insertion of sense of place elements in a
virtual heritage environment (VHE) would assist in the
preservation and conservation of the sense of history at a
particular historical site. Studies on the sensation of place in
virtual environments could be linked to the ever-expanding
virtual presence domain. Though the lack of examples in virtual
heritage evaluation and experiments in relation to sense of place
may contribute to certain setbacks, it would be feasible to analyze
the techniques in relevant experiments in virtual presence
evaluation. This paper presents the methods and preliminary
findings from an experiment designed to evaluate the significance
of virtual presence in contributing towards the sense of place
experience in a VHE. The experiment is part of a larger research
on establishing elements of sense of place in a VHE. Twenty
participants were each requested to describe their experiences
exploring a virtual reconstruction of Kampung Hulu Mosque at
the historic city of Melaka using a head-mounted display (HMD).
Purposive sampling method was adopted as the participants are
selected from those who had some knowledge on the topic of
“sense of place” either from personal or academic experiences.
While quantitative methods may be considered a norm in the
evaluation technique adopted in most presence research,
qualitative methods similarly to those used in phenomenological
investigations could alternatively offer a wider perspective in
virtual environment experience especially to those within the
cultural heritage domain. An in-depth semi-structured interview
method was adopted as the main data collection method for the
experiment along with the “think aloud” method. In the “think
aloud” method, participants are required to provide their
commentary concurrently as they explored the VHE. For the
purpose of data organization, the findings are broadly organized
based on the categories of real place dimensions by Turner and
Turner (2006). The categories are based on the physical
attributes, activities, meanings and affects, social interactions and
immersive device factors. Participants’ responses were analyzed
and discussed using content and thematic analysis adapted from
similar studies in virtual presence and sense of place. Preliminary
findings indicated that a fully immersive setup does immediately
trigger a “sense of being somewhere” but would not necessarily
suggest a sense of a particular place. It also indicated that
knowledge in sense of place terminology does not provide
uniformity in the type of responses from the participants as sense
of place is based on personal emotions and experience.
Furthermore, being fully immersed does not allow particular
place essence to be felt without a complete reconstruction of the
intended place as noted by most participants. Lessons could be
learnt from video games development which provides visually
comprehensive and dynamic place environment with realistic
auditory elements, interactive avatars, and informative support
contents. We conclude by discussing the importance of
interdisciplinary studies on the interpretation of real place
elements, particularly in fully immersive architectural VHE.
Keywords—Virtual Heritage; Sense of Place; Presence; Virtual
Environments; Virtual Reality; Architectural Heritage; Serious
Games
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Architectural heritage embodies more than its palpable
elements and physical entities. Architectural heritage signifies
intangible qualities of memories, symbolism, meanings,
emotions and senses [1]. Perhaps the lack of these qualities in
architectural VHE hinders the user’s learning experience.
Historical reconstructions would need more than good scenery
and impressive details to show the impressions of the past [2].
One of the important approaches that could potentially portray
the richness of architectural heritage is highlighting the sense
of place. Place was included as one of the focus of heritage
conservation in the Burra Charter (The Australia ICOMOS
Charter for Places of Cultural Significance) and The ICOMOS
New Zealand Charter (Charter for the Conservation of Places
of Cultural Heritage Value) [3]. It is believed that the insertion
of sense of place elements in VHE would assist in the
preservation and conservation of the sense of history at a
particular historical site.
Sense of place commonly describes the unique human
experience, bonding and emotion towards a particular place. It
could be argued that there seems to be a consensus on some of
the core aspects of people-place relationship particularly those
concerned with the phenomenological aspects of place
relations. Phenomenology in its simplest term is the

interpretative study of human experience which could also be
defined as the “exploration and description of phenomena,
where phenomena refers to things or experiences as human
beings experience them” [4]. Phenomenology is also concerned
with “the study of experience from the perspective of the
individual, ‘bracketing’ taken-for-granted assumptions and
usual ways of perceiving” [5]. The need for a
phenomenological approach in architecture to safeguard the
spirit of place or the genius loci, to avoid the loss of place was
highlighted in [6].
A. Presence as a Representation of Sense of Place
In virtual environments, place could be represented through
the creation of a virtual world consisting of elements from
symbolic reference to real places. Similarly to physical places,
insertion of meaningful contents and elements such as avatars
and interactivities provide the necessary components to help
trigger a sensation of place. Sense of place in a virtual
environment is arguably related to studies in presence. Sense of
presence commonly relates to the sensation of feeling present
in another environment. Presence is a state where people would
respond to situations and events in a virtual world as if it were
real [7]. The amount of presence provided by specific virtual
environments is generally determined by factors of immersion
and realism. The concept of presence, commonly defined as a
user’s subjective sensation of “being there” [8] has been a
fundamental concept for understanding and evaluating the
effectiveness of virtual environments [9]. This concept has
been considered as the key to defining virtual reality in the
context of human experience rather than its technological
hardware [10]. The term presence itself has been used in a wide
range of research areas hence expanding its definitions. This
however makes the concept even harder to define [11].
Presence is also “an unusually rich and diverse concept” [12]
or a “multi-component construct” [13]. Due to lack of standard
definition for presence, most authors agreed that both media
characteristics and user characteristics play an important part in
determining presence [13]. Media characteristics generally
concern the medium and contents of the VE setup, while user
characteristics refer to the user’s personal demographics which
include age, gender and prior experience with mediated
environment.
In VH designs, a primary factor that should be considered
for an effective dissemination of sense of place experience is
arguably embedded in the category of medium offered to the
user. The medium would determine the aspects of immersion
and graphical richness of the contents, which is also related to
the factors of realism. The wealth of content in a VHE is a
significant factor as it naturally involved adapting heritage
contents from real environments and situations. The impact of
the level of immersion and realism in VE towards evoking the
sense of presence could be considered as one of the most
discussed topics in presence research. Several authors [14],
[15] stressed the importance of both factors in VE design while
other authors [16], [17], [18] suggested otherwise.
B. Presence Measurements
The reliability of the measuring methods used in evaluating
sense of presence in VE has been one of the key debates in its
research community. Though the lack of examples in virtual
heritage evaluation and experiments focussing on sense of
place may contribute to certain setbacks, it would be feasible to
analyze the techniques in relevant experiments in virtual
presence evaluation such as in [19], [20] and [21].
Presence could be measured through quantitative and
qualitative methods similarly to those applied in social science
research [22]. Quantitative approach would measure the level
of presence experienced by the person in a mediated
environment, while qualitative approach would describe the
nature of the presence experience. The vast majority of
published methods in presence measurement would often be
associated with the user’s subjective experience in a VE using
“post-exposure self-report” where participants “respond to
Likert-type scales enquiring about how they felt during the
media exposure” as noted by [22].While the quantitative
approach may be considered a norm in the presence research
community, qualitative methods similarly to those used in
phenomenological investigations could open a wider
perspective in virtual environment experience especially to
those focused on cultural heritage domain. Current presence
research suggests that qualitative techniques would provide
information that is not based on quantitative data that could
afford us a means to identify subtle aspects of presence
experience, and in turn, highlight these experiences and
stimulate quantitative research [23]. As previously discussed,
studies in sense of place within its phenomenological roots are
inclined towards subjective measures of people’s experiences
in their environment. In the following section, we describe the
procedure of an experiment designed to evaluate the
significance of virtual presence in contributing towards the
sense of place experience in a VHE. The experiment is part of
a larger research on establishing elements of sense of place in a
VHE.
II. M
ETHODOLOGY
A. Experimental Procedure
The experiment will measure the effect of place presence
from navigating in a fully immersive VHE and how it would
affect a person’s sense of place. Participants were each
requested to describe their experiences exploring a virtual
reconstruction of Kampung Hulu Mosque, Melaka using HMD.
The Kampung Hulu Mosque is among the oldest functioning
mosques in Malaysia located at the heart of the historic city of
Melaka and within the vicinity of the Melaka River. Built in
1728 during the Dutch occupation, the mosque exhibits a
mixture of architectural styles particularly those of Chinese and
Javanese influence or Sino-Eclectic [24].
The 3D VH model consists of the mosque building and
some of its surrounding elements as shown in the aerial view in
Fig. 1. It should also be noted that navigation is only accessible
to the textured spaces that include the mosque and its enclosed
compound, and the immediate areas adjacent to it. Some of the

original activities within the mosque’s compound are simulated
through animated avatars and ambient audios.
Fig. 1. Aerial View of the 3D VH Model
During the briefing on the flow of the experiment, a strong
emphasis has been placed on the importance of the participants
describing and commenting the experience of the walkthrough
during the navigation process. Although the suggested
comments that are recommended focused on the sense of place
and heritage contents, other topics such as technicalities,
feelings and emotions were also considered. Explanation of all
equipment involved and their operational methods was
provided along with the details of the recording and
transcribing procedures. All recordings were transcribed and
translated into English except some terminologies or words that
are unique to the Malay language.
“Think aloud” method is adapted to capture the
participants’ experience in the experiment which records the
commentary of the “ongoing thinking processes” [25]. In the
adapted think aloud protocol, the participants are required to
provide their commentary concurrently as they explored the
VHE. This is similar to a related research by [21] where
participants were required to provide a concurrent commentary
on their experiences during their navigation and exploration of
the virtual environment. This technique has some advantages in
which the participants’ real-time experience could be
simultaneously recorded as they occurred. Although this was
conducted during the navigation, the sound quality in the VHE
was still at its optimum level to accommodate the questioning
process. The given duration for each session is within a
maximum of 15 minutes or lower if requested by the
participants. Nevertheless, the author acting as the interviewer
would adjust the timing of each session accordingly based on
the amount, and quality of the data collected.
In addition to the “think aloud” transcriptions, in-depth
semi-structured interviews were conducted with the
participants during and after the experiment to diversify the
data on their experiences. The interviews were guided by
questions regarding their place experience, emotional
attachment, the after-effects of the equipment used and
suggestions for future improvements.
B. Apparatus
The equipment used in the experiment setup is shown in
Fig. 2. An Oculus Rift DK1 HMD was used to display the
“fully immersive” VR version of the VHE content. The
resolution of the right and left displays of the HMD is 1280 x
800 (horizontal x vertical) pixels. Stereo headphones were used
to convey the ambient sounds in the VHE, while game
controllers provided the navigational movements.
Fig. 2. The Equipment Used in the Experiment
C. Demographic Data
A total of 20 participants volunteered to take part in this
experiment involving 8 lecturers and 12 undergraduate students
from the Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying at
the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Perak, Malaysia. Purposive
sampling method was adopted as participants were selected
from those who had some knowledge on the topic of “sense of
place” either from personal or academic experiences. Purposive
sampling method uses cases that are “handpicked” for specific
purposes [26] and are used when “description rather than
generalisation” [27] is the goal of the research. The groups of
students were selected from the graduating semesters whom
had some experience in sense of place learning from related
academic courses. The number of participants was deemed
sufficient for the data collection as the number is within the
recommended amount for most qualitative research that
employed interviews as the primary data method [28].
Table I shows the distribution of the demographic category
of the participants involved in the experiment. The
demographic data include items such as gender, work
background, education level, and type of video game player as
suggested in [29]. Although this research does not cover
individual factors such as personal skills and experience,
findings that correlate to these factors would provide
significant insights for this research and thus will be included
in the discussion. In regards to virtual presence research,
independent measures are suggested when dealing with
differences in personality and the differences in the immersive
system itself [30].
This experiment fits itself under the first suggested
examination of similar participants’ personality type across
different system factors as stated in the quote above. However,

a similarity on the participants sampling only concerns those
with familiarity or some knowledge with the term “sense of
place” regardless of their level of knowledge on the
terminology itself and therefore it is not a personality factor.
Influence from unique personal characteristics would be
investigated to seek any correlations between the two factors
mentioned.
TABLE I. P
ARTICIPANT
’
S
D
EMOGRAPHIC
C
ATEGORIES
Demographic Categories Total Participants
Gender:
Male 13
Female 7
Age group:
20-25 years old 12
26-30 years old 1
31-35 years old 3
36-40 years old 4
41 years old or older 0
Education level:
Diploma 12
Bachelor 0
Master 5
PhD 3
Type of video game player:
Non-video game player 4
Novice 6
Occasional 5
Frequent 2
Exper
t
3
Computer skill level:
Beginner 0
Novice 4
Average 15
Advanced 1
Expert 0
Prior experience with VR:
Yes 0
No 20
Work background:
Lecturer 8
Studen
t
12
Total number of participants: 20
III. A
NALYSIS
M
ETHOD
The analysis of the data derived from the interview
transcripts is based on several known methods in qualitative
enquiry. Further details of the selected analysis method are
described below:
• Content analysis: An example of a quasi-statistical
approach to qualitative analysis that uses “word and
phrase frequencies and inter-correlations as key
methods of determining the relative importance of terms
and concepts” [31].
• Thematic analysis: It could be defined as “a method for
identifying, analyzing and reporting patterns (themes)
within data. It minimally organizes and describes your
data set in (rich) detail” [32]. Reoccurring themes are
identified and investigated to seek essential elements
that should be recommended for future VH
developments. Significant themes could also be derived
from unexpected responses, those that were not
predicted prior to the experiment.
• Data triangulation: Analyzing the relationship between
previous literature and the primary data collected “helps
to ensure that the themes found in a study are credible
representations of people’s experiences and
perspectives because the information draws on multiple
sources of information or individuals” [33].
IV. R
ESULTS AND
F
INDINGS
This section discusses the results and analytical findings
based on the data obtained from the participants’ commentaries
on their experience navigating through the VHE.
Commentaries from both “think aloud” method during real-
time navigation and those from the post-experiment’s semi-
structured interviews were recorded and analyzed. The
interview questions were designed to extract unique themes
from various descriptions of place experience within an
architectural VHE context. Data from the recorded interviews
was transcribed verbatim and translated into English as the
majority of commentaries are originally in Malay. For the
purpose of clarity in the data interpretations, quotes from the
transcripts were paraphrased carefully without losing the
quality of the original commentaries. An edited version of
interviews should be a truthful representation of “what the
interviewee actually said than by a translation into the
researcher’s words” [34].
For the purpose of the data organization, the findings were
broadly classified based on the categories of real place
dimensions suggested by [21] due to the similarity in the
objectives of the current work and previous project. The
categories are the physical attributes, activities, meanings and
affects, and social interactions. Sub-categories of these
attributes are generated from the emerging themes acquired
from the commentaries. The descriptions of each category are
listed below, adapted and modified from [21]:
• Physical attributes: Identification and description of
features in the environment such as plants, paths,
buildings, structures and other visual features. Non-
visual senses such as sounds are also included and
features whose absence was remarked upon.
• Activities: Refers to actual or desired activity in the
VHE.
• Meanings and affect: Memories of other similar places,
personal experiences, past memories, positive or
negative emotions.
• Social interactions: References to other people (or
avatars) in the environment, either seen or heard,
reactions to other people, references to joint activities.
• Immersive device factors: The effects of the devices
involved towards the participants’ experience of virtual
place.

The discussion also adapted the additional attributes from
the experiment by the said authors concerning the “artefacts of
the study”, here known as the “immersive device factors”. It
basically refers to the effects of the devices involved towards
the participants’ experience of the place. This attribute
generally relates to comments based on the technicality of the
study itself and the reaction to the technology involved such as
display latency and others. However, this attribute would only
be discussed if it was mentioned in the commentaries and was
considered significant to the study.
A. Physical Attributes
Although the experiment only focused on experiencing the
areas within the mosque building, comments were also directed
towards the “incompleteness” of the whole village areas. The
VHE are only partially rendered with textures focusing only on
the mosque’s adjacent areas (Fig.3). However, this has caused
some participants to remark the need for a more comprehensive
and realistic environment in order to feel more sense of place.
Fig. 3. Sample of the Less Rendered Areas of the Mosque
Some participants were surprised to see the incompleteness
of the outdoor environment: “…if its goal is to look at the
sense of place shouldn’t there be more houses surrounding the
mosque?” (PL06). Comparisons were also made between the
experiences inside the mosque building which were more
detailed, and the outdoor environment which were less
rendered: “…maybe the outdoor environment needs to be
visible…let everything there so that we really feel it exist
there…when outdoor I don’t feel anything…when inside I
could feel it maybe because of the details…the details for
example at the walls, I feel like touching the wall even though
it’s not there…” (PS04).
As a local resident in Melaka coupled with his familiarity to
the mosque’s area, participant PL02 provided a detailed
description of the physical contextual surroundings that might
be useful for future improvements of the VHE: “…if you want
to know my opinion, the Kampung Hulu village itself have to be
there…it’s not solely at the compound, the surroundings itself
must be lively as well because people will feel curious and go
out of that compound and will look for something else…
automatically like me after I’ve explored the parts by parts
(interior) after that I want to explore the outside because I
want to explore other things as well, like not feeling
satisfied…but what exist in the surroundings will strengthen
the intangibles, there’s a Malay village there, Chinese town,
across the road there’s a river, so that will make peoples feel
more…the connection of the mosque…the first thing people
will automatically ask about Kampung Hulu mosque is:
where’s the village (kampong)?” (PL02).
Some participants also felt the need for more auditory
elements to make it livelier as the current VHE was considered
to have a noticeably lower audio contents especially near the
mosque’s surroundings: “…if the place really has more
buildings surrounds it, it should have sounds of cars maybe,
sounds of peoples there…it’s like quiet and quiet there…but it
does feel like being in a mosque because there’s people
reciting…the sounds are important…” (PS03).
B. Activities
Most participants were excited to explore the VHE when
putting on the HMD for the first time. Although the HMD did
not provide a full HD resolution as compared to most desktop
displays, it still provides the excitement in exploring the 3D
mosque environment: “...for me when inside this VR people
would feel more fun…fun to explore…the feeling of
walkthrough became more interesting…doesn’t matter about
the graphics…” (PL02). Comments were mostly touched on
the desired activities for the participants: “Feels more
excited…feels like really wanting to explore the whole
place…” (PL03). The immersive effects from the HMD have
offered better details and clarity for some participants despite
the lower graphical fidelity. For example, participant PS07
preferred to use the HMD for educational purposes due to the
feeling of being fully immersed in a new environment:
“Yes…it’s like…we feel being at that place…we feel like
that…we could compare (to real places) …but I’ve never been
there…feels like being here…even though the graphics are
lower…for education purpose it’s good…not sleepy…when it
feels like this…we feel like wanting to explore all areas…every
detail…all places…I mean…seriously…a new experience…I
started touching a PC when I was 5 years old with the
games…but this is a new experience…” (PS07).
C. Meaning and Affects
Social interactions were some of the common reactions in
the VHE as several participants demonstrated a tendency to
greet the avatars as they encountered them, as if the avatars
were responsive to them. Some of them characterized the male
avatars as “uncles” and gesturing them with respect, just as
they would in real life situation (Fig. 4). PL02 demonstrated a
tendency to greet and meet due to the immersive factor:
“…people could see it in 360 degrees so automatically people
will feel they want to go to each part (of the space) …and they
could really feel the environment even sometimes you could
start talking to yourself like: Uncle! What are you doing?”
(PL02).

Fig. 4. Animated Avatars in the VHE
D. Immersive Device Factors
As predicted, some participants complained about the
motion sickness-like effects or known as “cybersickness” when
using the HMD (Oculus Rift) which restricts the flow of the
navigational activities inside the VHE. Perhaps, this is due to
some latency issues in the HMD, specifically for Oculus Rift
DK1. The movement inside the VHE was not “smooth” as
commented by PL02: “…I feel dizzy so it disturbs this
(process)…ok, I need to stop, really feel dizzy…because when
we move it’s not smooth…” (PL02). The low graphical fidelity
in the HMD was noticed by most of the participants despite its
incapability to restrain the feeling of immersion in an
environment. However, most participants suggested that further
improvements are needed on the graphics quality and the
realism of the contents in the VHE in order to achieve a more
sense of place: “Yes, it could get you closer to feeling that
place but it needs to be very detailed because currently it’s
very graphical so it’s less believable so with certain realism it
can work…” (PL08).
For some participants the feeling of being in the physical
room “disappeared” when using the HMD providing a stronger
sense of “being there”: “…feels like being inside here…it’s the
same place but we feel like we are there…feels like I’ve
disappeared from this room.” (PS07). Fully immersive devices
such as HMDs help to block out the visibility of the
surrounding physical elements, such as the room itself and
other peripheral devices that might create distractions to the
experience (Fig. 5). This was mentioned by one participant:
“There’s a bit of feeling of being in the room but it disappears
for a moment…when we wear the Oculus it focuses on our eyes
and that area (space) only…the additions of all the sounds also
helped…” (PS05).
Fig. 5. Participant Exploring the VHE Using HMD
E. Summary of Findings
This section summarizes the analytical findings of the
experiment based on the content and thematic analysis of the
transcripts from both “think aloud” commentaries and semi-
structured interviews.
Fig. 6 illustrated the results of the content analysis based on
word frequency counts. The analysis was conducted through
the transcriptions of the interviews based on the five categories
of real place dimensions, as previously described.
Fig. 6. Content Analysis Result: Word Frequency Counts
The results were generated via QSR Nvivo software for
both content and thematic analysis of the experiment. The
results indicated a higher frequency of words relating to the
category of the physical attributes and the meaning and affect.
The identification of themes based on real place dimensions
alone extracted significant elements that were mentioned
during all three sessions. The emerging themes that were
extracted indicated references to real world attributes as shown
in the thematic network diagram below (Fig. 7).
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Physical
Attributes
Activities Meaning &
Affec
t
Social
Interactions
Immersive
device
factors

Fig. 7. Thematic Network Result: Sense of Place in VHE
The clarity and the realism of the VHE contents were not a
major issue for the participants when describing their
experiences using HMD. A full sense of immersion was
immediately felt by all participants when using the HMD and
some have described their experience as a feeling of a sense of
place. Some participants mentioned the necessity of a complete
environment to be as close as that of the real place in order to
feel a suggestion of sense of place. This shows that a fully
immersive setup does immediately offer a “sense of being
somewhere”. However, it would not necessarily provide a
sense of a real particular place. In terms of the impact on the
participants’ physical comfort, most commentaries relating to a
sense of discomfort were mentioned when using the HMD.
Common themes are mostly linked to the feeling of dizziness
and motion sickness-like effect.
V. C
ONCLUSION
The sense of virtual presence could be achieved with ease
when full immersive devices such as HMDs are used.
However, being fully immersed does not allow particular place
essence to be felt without a comprehensive reconstruction of a
VHE. An instantaneous effect of virtual presence was felt by
the majority of the participants when equipped with a fully
immersive setup (HMD). In the context of a virtual place,
although full immersion in a VHE is incapable of evoking a
sense of place, it has interestingly created a “sense of being
somewhere”. This shows that a sense of place would often be
unique and personal, perceived through one’s vision, derived
from memories and experiences of the individual’s local
environment.
The advantages of learning and understanding about the
cultural heritage places through virtual presence environment
are yet conclusive. HMD was effective in delivering an
instantaneous response from the participants due to its unique
and novel approach for 3D viewing. Since all participants are
first-time users of HMD and new to gaming, the experiment
has triggered an instant excitement naturally. Some participants
are affected by the HMD’s motion sickness effect which in turn
caused interference with the navigation experience. As
previously discussed, virtual presence is typically determined
by two categories; media characteristics and user
characteristics [13].
Research about virtual presence is an interdisciplinary
study, and thus its research findings should present itself such
that different disciplines can understand them. This paper has
shown that, in order to suggest the elements that evoke a sense
of place in an architectural virtual heritage environment, it
would initially require theoretical understandings from various
disciplines such as anthropology, architecture, philosophy,
environmental psychology, human geography and
neuroscience. Environmental psychology and human
geography are already interdisciplinary in itself, suggesting the
significance of cross-disciplinary culture in the knowledge
acquisition. Emerging research fields such as in digital
humanities could also be integrated into current and future
architectural studies.
Heritage and culture are complex entities, and so their
replication in a virtual environment comes with unique
challenges. However, opportunities are readily available in
virtual reality as designers need to be selective when designing
virtual heritage environments. As virtual reality technologies
move closer to a consumer oriented HMD market, users from
the public domain may potentially be offered exciting contents
and new virtual experiences. Virtual heritage should take this
opportunity to disseminate insightful heritage contents through
the current VR medium. Future contents should always focus
on the improvement in human experiences, regardless whether
they are for capturing scenes of past histories or offering a
believable fantasy.
A
CKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the e-Warisan SENIBINA
Project team at Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia
for their generous assistance and support in the 3D
development process of Kampung Hulu Mosque, Melaka.
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