X3D-Based Virtual Reality Experiences in Water Museum Exhibitions

This paper discusses the work undertaken by the China Water Museum to develop X3D-based Water Museum Virtual Reality Experience System (WMVRES) to educate the public on water resources and the history of water. This system is to deal with difficulties in applying 3D information system in virtual reality experience, which is written in Extensible-3D(X3D) and Java. Administrators of this system manage information in 3D scene and the updated information can be saved in database automatically. Two key technologies are involved in this paper: Real-time rendering and Interaction. At the end of this paper, framework and major modules of the experience system are elaborated.

I. Introduction

It is well understood that a sense of history and an insight into shared humanity, past as well as present, significantly contributes to our understanding of the experiences and worldviews of people of diverse cultural backgrounds. Monuments, sites, and artifacts provide a means of access to this understanding; they serve as conduits by which people today can learn of the richness and diversity of human life ways. Many of the objects revealed through archaeology are made available to the public at museums and historic sites. Yet, even at the world's great museums, visitors have access to objects divorced from their original physical, social, and historical contexts.