Virtual museums and tours or why it's bad that everything goes online

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Now everything is gradually going online. This is not a secret for anyone, and much of what previously could be done only by coming to some place is now being done on a computer or even from a smartphone. Managing your bank account, ordering statements, paying utility bills, buying food, getting advice and much more has become much easier.

Now, after this, other benefits of the digital world have come to us, but are these benefits as they might seem at first glance. Let's take a look at what I'm talking about and see how good it is in the short and long term.

Each of us at least once, but used maps from Google or Yandex. At the same time, he not only looked at the location of a particular house, but also studied the panorama of the streets. This is really convenient, because having studied the area in advance, it is much easier to find out where to go when you yourself are on the spot.

Now, some entertainment events are based on this principle. For example, Google has a whole service that allows you to visit museums, see what's inside, and do it from home for free. But is it really that good?

How to visit the museum for free

Indeed, you can visit the museum for free if you just look at its panorama from the inside. There are also additional advantages besides the lack of payment. For example, you can take a closer look at what museums are often outside the public domain. For example, when the interior is fenced in enfilades and it is impossible to come up in order to examine the picture or pattern of the tapestry on the wall.

Also, this way of visiting attractions will be useful for people who want to get acquainted with the exposition, but cannot do it. There can be many reasons, for example, the inability to leave the house, lack of money or simply lack of free time. In such cases, when there is simply no alternative, even the possibility of virtual sightseeing will be very pleasant.

Some sights are quite expensive and, for example, a visit to Peterhof in St. Petersburg costs 900 rubles and not everyone will want to pay that much “for visiting the park,” albeit a beautiful one. And if you take a ticket for a family, then the price rises accordingly several times.

Even if you have visited some museum, you really liked it and you did not regret the money spent at all, after a while the exposition may change a little, but not enough to go to another city. It is enough to see the changes in the virtual tour.

Virtual Museum in China

Virtual tours of museums are gaining popularity in China now. Let me remind you that now a quarantine regime has been introduced in this country and many Chinese people just sit at home. You can play computer games, watch movies, read books and the like, but many want something else. There are even statistics prepared by Gamma Data Corp. According to the data, revenues from the sale of the ten most popular games for the iPhone increased by an average of forty percent during the forced isolation. Some games have doubled their sales altogether.

According to Gamma Data Corp., sales of the top 10 iPhone games have increased by an average of 40 percent over the past two weeks. The growth in popularity of games from the Top 60 in some cases reached 100 percent, writes Zhongxinwang.

For them, those museums that have not yet prepared virtual tours are actively preparing a similar service. For example, museums in Liaoning Province, including the Imperial Palace Museum.

In such tours, “visitors” can not only virtually walk through the territory of the museum, but also listen to the comments of the audio guide while they are examining the exhibits specially prepared for this place. Considering that the majority of museum tours are now carried out in this format, this does not lead to additional costs. You just need to upload the audio guide materials to the server and you're done.

Some special exhibits are even being prepared for such museums. For example, some particularly valuable items in storage can be placed in the shooting rooms. After that, they will be removed again and can only be seen on the screen.

Such museums can be free if advertisers or the government pay for the preparation of the virtual tours as part of the cultural awareness program. True, you will have to pay not only for the creation of the system, but also cover the loss from a decrease in the number of offline visitors.

If no one wants to pay for such work, museums can charge a fee from visitors. In this case, the price should be lower, as the costs will be lower.

As you can see, only one pluses can be taken out of this method, including entertainment at a time when entire cities cannot leave their homes. But this is not entirely true, and the minuses will also be enough.

Why virtual museums are bad

The main disadvantage of virtual museums is that everything around is not real. That is, you will not be able to discern the details of the work and feel the presence of what was painted 500 years ago, forged 1,500 years ago, or buried in the ground 10,000 years ago. It is these feelings that are an important moment in visiting historical museums.

In contemporary art museums, it is very important how the exhibits are placed in space relative to each other. This can be seen with peripheral vision, but completely unnoticed on the screen. In addition, many museums have exhibits that should evoke a tactile response. For example, you can touch, smell or listen to something.

The Lunnusadam Museum in Tallinn is a seaplane hangar, in which there are many samples of equipment and even a real submarine, into which you can go and walk through the compartments. This can also be photographed and prepared for a virtual tour, but the sensations will not be at all those that you will get in reality being inside this "vessel".

If you are fond of painting and are good at applying strokes or types of paint, visiting art galleries will turn into just viewing pictures for you and you will not be able to discern the master's technique and how he worked on his work.

As a result, we get the result, but it will be a little synthetic. Even if you use virtual reality glasses, the effect will not be the same. We will receive information, but we will not receive sensations. It's like looking at a photograph of nature, but not smelling the meadow flowers, listening to music on headphones, rather than going to a concert, or watching football on TV, rather than going to a stadium. Yes, in some moments you will get even more information, but you will not plunge into this atmosphere.

And one more disadvantage will be that in the long term this will reduce the popularity of travel as such. We have already stopped doing a lot, replacing it with a computer. For example, going to the cinema, replacing it with streaming services, meeting people, preferring instant messengers, or "kicking the ball", preferring FIFA on the PlayStation. It's easier and more convenient, but the feeling is not what they say.

Not so long ago, in the editorial office, we joked about visiting the mausoleum in VR glasses. The topics that we have reached, even somehow inconvenient to print. The fact is that virtual tours can be brought to the point of absurdity and fantasize something that was not exactly conceived by the creators of the technology.

How virtual tours are made

In fact, creating a virtual tour is not much different from preparing street panoramas with large mapping services. First of all, it is necessary to prepare the premises. Since you are unlikely to want to look at the exhibits through people who also fall into the frame, you need to choose a time to shoot. The morning before the opening is perfect, when there will be light from the windows, but the halls will be empty.

Shooting is carried out both with a panoramic camera and with a conventional one. The first is needed for orientation in the hall, so that you can look around, and the second in order to see the details. For example, a painting or other exhibit.

Actually, that's almost all. The task at the first stage is to photograph everything that is in the room as detailed as possible. After that, it remains only to understand how to present it and, using special software, to assemble it into a finished tour. Panoramas are lined up in the required sequence, and individual photos are embedded in them. On top of all this, accompanying texts and audio guide recordings are superimposed.

Technically, the process does not look complicated if you have a ready-made platform that large studios have. More complexities come with design and administrative work.

Is there a future for virtual reality

Many people believe that there is no future for virtual reality. Rumor has it that the present future is augmented reality. It is difficult to agree with this due to the fact that with all the advantages of AR, this is only a "painting". Only VR can reproduce a world that does not really exist or is simply not around, as in the case of virtual museums.

This is why VR will exist separately from AR. If we talk about the same museums, AR will be relevant when physically visiting for more information, and VR - when remotely. Although, I am still convinced that such places should be visited on their own. And in general, the virtual world is very convenient and its benefits should be used, but the real world should not be forgotten either.

Perhaps this sounds very old-fashioned and not modern for the author of one of the largest high-tech sites, but I believe that you cannot lose touch with reality and high technologies should complement real life, not replace it, reducing activity only to satisfying physical needs. Someday we will all be loaded into a conditional matrix, but for now we need to enjoy what is around us. Of course, if there is such an opportunity. If not, virtual tours can also be used for general development.

What museums can be visited online

If you want to visit a virtual museum, a list of them can be easily googled for "museums online". For example, here is a list of several museums for such a visit.

Here is a list of some of the more interesting options:

• Museum of Fine Arts (Houston)
• White House (Washington)
• State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
• Berlin Picture Gallery (Berlin)
• Cinema Concern Mosfilm (Moscow)