Culture and local heritage
Galleria Virtuale Santacroce
A virtual-reality gallery dedicated to the Santacroce painters: their major works gathered in one room to visit with a headset, and the Annunciation in 3D.
Summary
The Santacroce painters in a gallery to visit in VR.
A virtual gallery dedicated to the Santacroce painters, who came from the hamlet of San Pellegrino Terme that bears the same name. It gathers some of their major works in a room to walk through with a headset, with a narrated story that accompanies the tour, and a full 3D reconstruction of Francesco da Santacroce's Annunciation, which the visitor can step into.
Problem
One family of painters, works scattered across many cities.
The works of the Santacroce painters are kept today in museums and churches in different cities, far from the hamlet the family takes its name from. There is no place where they can be seen side by side, and the village that bears their name has no way to show them. The virtual gallery answers this: it gathers the works in a single space and brings them back to where their roots are.
Approach
Every work in the format that does it justice.
The gallery does not treat every work the same way. Some are presented flat, hung on the walls as in a real room; others in parallax, with the planes of the painting separated in depth, so that the scene gains volume as you move; the Annunciation is fully reconstructed as a three-dimensional environment. The audio commentary, written by the client, accompanies the visit.
System
A room to walk through and a painting to step into.
The visitor puts on the headset and finds themselves in a bright room, with a wooden floor and light walls, where the works hang in their frames. They approach each one, look at it up close and listen to its story. In front of the Annunciation the frame becomes a threshold: beyond it, the painted room is fully reconstructed, with the coffered ceiling, the window onto the landscape, the angel and Mary, and you can walk around the figures.
Results
The appeal of stepping into a painting.
A museum well received and appreciated by visitors, with superior audio quality and an innovation that lets a painting be appreciated in all its depth.
Technology
Unreal Engine on Meta Quest 3S, models in Blender and Substance.
The application runs standalone on Meta Quest 3S, with no computer attached, and is developed in Unreal Engine. The 3D models and textures of the room, the frames and the Annunciation are made with Blender and with Substance Designer and Painter. The source material is the set of high-resolution scans of the paintings provided by the client, used for the flat works, for the planes of the parallax works and for the 3D reconstruction. The audio commentary is based on the texts provided by the client.
Reuse
A dynamic, adaptable museum.
The technologies behind this museum can be adapted and reused to build other museums, whatever their content. Whether static or immersive paintings, 3D models and sculptures, or entire digital landscapes, the museum lends itself to the most varied requests.
CTA
Do you have a collection or a space to turn into a virtual gallery?
Tell us what you want to exhibit and to whom: we design the experience together, from the content to the devices it is visited on.
Talk to Adeo