Table of the Gods: Development of a Multi-Touch App for Museum

Abstract- We describe the development of an applicationaccomplished in a museum context to explain the variedrepresentations, traits, and connections between some of thedeities from the Mesoamerican pantheon. In order to attract ayounger audience, a multi-user interface was implemented,with an intuitive interaction system based on graphicinformation and touch-screen technology.We explain the installed app, its conceptual design and itsimplementation with the Unity engine. The development hastwo main parts: the programming of the objects as intelligentagents with random and anti-collision movement; and themulti-touch screen programming, meaning the detection andinterpretation of different kinds of touches and gestures andthe changes they produce in objects behavior. Keywords- Interface; Multitouch; Museum Application;Behavior I. INTRODUCTION For a long time, museums were regarded as placeswhere pieces or collections valued through artistic criteriawere exhibited to the public. This idea has changed in thesecond half of the 20th century, in the hopes that theybecome useful tools in the achievement of educational taskstowards a wide but predominantly young public [1]. Anothergoal is to improve the population’s knowledge bymotivating self-study and solving it interest about a widerange of topics.Museums dedicated to the Hispanic cultures have alsoevolved, as evidenced by "The National Museum ofAnthropology in Mexico" which was designed with a cleareducational purpose. The founding of “The Museum ofTlatelolco” b y t h e UNAM (National AutonomousUniversity of Mexico) and INAH (National Institute ofAnthropology and History) in 2011, attempted to integratethe multidisciplinary knowledge of history, anthropology,arts, science, and technology to show that the areas ofscience and humanities are integrated and combined in orderto enrich and expand our approach to the past.It is within this context that we developed a system tointroduce some deities from the Mesoamerican pantheon.It's a complicated issue, there is a multitude of deities withvarying degrees of importance and they are subject tochanges, such as their names and representation accordingto the historical period and the local culture. Research onthis subject has provided important insights forunderstanding the meaning, relevance and roles ofprehispanic deities. We now know that they representconcepts, so the complexity of their definition and the linksestablished between them can be measured by thesophistication of the Mesoamerican way of thinking. For theMuseum, we simplified the information to include only asubset of deities and only some of their attributes.In order to express this intricate way of thinking in anappealing way, we looked for a solution that has thefollowing characteristics:- Visual: communication through images is preferred byyoung people.- Dynamic: to catch the users’ attention and curiosity.- Intuitive: with an accessible interface requiring little timeto get used to.- Interactive: the user becomes pro-active, thus increasingthe cognitive process [2].- Multi-user: to promote the dynamic participation of agroup of people.These requirements are common in many exhibitions,and various technological solutions are often used forenhanced educational effects; these include multimedia,systems built specifically and VR technologies [3].II.