This interactive publication originated from a scientific research project supported by FAPERJ and initiated in 2021 called “Centro Pi/Visgraf – IMPA: a locus of experimentation for expanded reality in shared media spaces”, approved under the FAPERJ public notice to support integrated innovation actions in science and technology institutions.
The idea for this project was born from discussions with researchers from different institutions about emerging visualization technologies enhanced and disseminated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a period in history in which we used different platforms for virtual communication. In 2021, granted by the National Institute of Technology, through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, I had the opportunity to coordinate the implementation and creation of the Center for Applied Mathematics at the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics – IMPA, also known as “Centro Pi”.
At IMPA, together with Professor Luiz Velho, lead researcher at the VISGRAF laboratory, we had already developed successful research using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) with researchers from other research institutions based in Rio de Janeiro, such as the Egyptologist at the National Museum, Dr. Antônio Brancaglion Junior (in memoriam) in the V-Horus Project, a collaborative work carried out by a multidisciplinary team, composed of designers, mathematicians, archaeologists, bioarchaeologists and historians with the objective of creating digital experiences from the Egyptian collection of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro.
Based on this and other experiences using different technologies, we decided to develop this project presented here together with two other long-time collaborators in research projects: the coordinator of the Digital Image Processing Laboratory – LAPID, at the National Museum of UFRJ, Professor Sergio Alex Kugland de Azevedo and the Research Physician of the DASA Group who shares with me the coordination of the BIODESIGN laboratory at PUC Rio, Dr. Heron Werner.
The publication also features several collaborators from the academic world reporting technical experiments as well as theoretical material on the concept and state of the art of 3D and visualization technologies.
In addition to V-Horus, in the area of cultural heritage, it is worth highlighting previous experiences in the area of VR visualization, such as the experience of the VISGRAF laboratory in the research and development of the project “The Tempest”, a proof of concept based on Shakespeare’s play, as well as the pioneering applications of VR in fetal medicine, presented by the BIODESIGN laboratory at PUC Rio in scientific conferences and disseminated in various media in Brazil and abroad.
The project presented below aimed to combine expanded reality (XR) technologies in three complementary lines of research of great importance in the socio-economic context of Rio de Janeiro: the area of audiovisual, the area of medicine and the area of historical and cultural heritage that will be presented in the format of experiments carried out with interactive access via QR Code.
We hope that reading and the interactive links can help in a greater understanding of the use and the possibilities of applications in different fields of science. •