ViSTA - Virtual and Social heritage Tour Application

The goal of the project is the development, development and experimentation, on a site managed by the Polo Museale of Puglia and identified in the National Archaeological Museum of Altamura, of an integrated technological system for the virtual and social touring of the artistic and cultural heritage.

The Virtual Tour

Consisting of one or more “immersive photos” – photographic reconstructions of a scene that the user – virtually located – can explore (with the help of the mouse) in all directions, also performing enlargement and reduction operations; the sensation experienced is comparable to the normal experience of “looking around” within a specific place.
It involves and integrates a series of recently applied technologies (from Web-GIS to photographic stitching for the 360 ° effect.

The Social Tour

To the “Virtual” meaning of the tour of an artistic and cultural asset, it is also possible to combine the characteristic of “Social”, or a set of technical aspects that allow an experience of use of museum contents that is creative before being innovative and that above all take into account the different ways of accessing them, then consider the specific needs of users with specific disabilities.

Project Goals

  • Making access to places of cultural, historical and artistic interest in our regional and national territory “in a more democratic way”, breaking down social constraints and hedges such as economic ones (for example linked to travel and organization costs), architectural (for particular disabilities, despite the good accessibility of many of the sites), cultural (for example overcoming potential religious-cultural constraints) and geographical (reducing distances whatever they are)
  • Enhance the offer of the cultural and museum heritage of Puglia by improving the use of places of culture by defining common strategies and objectives of enhancement in relation to the territory.
  • Experiment and test innovative and non-invasive technological solutions, which do not compromise the integrity of the monuments and do not provide for fixed installations, aimed at supporting and displaying exhibitions and other cultural initiatives for the promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage, also characterized by the possibility of simultaneous use in multiple sites and therefore supporting and enhancing museum networks.
  • Sharing agile methodologies and technological solutions useful for the production of trans-media content for scientific dissemination, teaching and social communication for the enhancement of cultural, tangible and intangible heritage, able to satisfy qualitative and economic objectives for a sustainable enhancement of cultural heritage.
  • To offer the community of the Apulian territory tools for the virtual 4.0 fruition of the artistic, cultural and historical heritage managed by the Polo Museale of Puglia, especially in reference to those sites that are not easily accessible both in economic and logistical terms.