Virtual Reality Visualization for Photogrammetric 3D Reconstructions of Cultural Heritage

In this paper the authors review the design of a self-build general-purpose Virtual Reality environment, which presents all relevant features of a full-size CAVE-like system, yet at a fraction of the financial and space requirements. Further, the application of this system to the development of a virtual museum is presented. The objects in the museum are models, reconstructed via photogrammetry from a set of pictures. For this process cost-free software is used. The presentation of the 3D models in the Virtual Environment is done using BlenderCAVE, a multi-screen extension of the Blender game engine. The main contributions of this paper are the discussion of the design choices for a small and low-budget but feature-rich virtual reality environment and the application of the system for cultural heritage. In this area tools for creation of 3D models and their presentation in a VR environment are presented.