The Augmented Telegrapher: Multi-player Mixed Reality in a Museum context

混合现实（MR）是将数字对象叠加到现实世界空间的技术，这是由微软（Microsoft）的全息透镜（HoloLens）等可穿戴耳机设备实现的，或者将数字对象叠加到手机的相机图像上。这项技术的优点是，用户可以在看到他们所处的真实位置的同时，看到同一空间内可以与之互动的“虚构”物体。这些令人兴奋的发展可以在我们的博物馆和遗产遗址中动员起来，使这些地方和它们的藏品栩栩如生，帮助解释和激活它们隐藏的历史。这个项目将开发一个MR应用程序，供康沃尔郡波尔斯科诺电报博物馆的游客使用，这是一个专注于跨大西洋电信历史的小型博物馆，也是英国和美国之间第一条电信电缆的所在地。我们将与博物馆的工作人员和康沃尔博物馆合作伙伴关系密切合作，开发一款应用程序，帮助博物馆吸引更广泛的兴趣，吸引博物馆难以吸引的年轻观众。我们的计划是使用MR设计一款多人游戏，要求小组解决一个虚构的问题，这个问题发生在博物馆的电缆隧道中，发生在第二次世界大战期间，当时该地点具有极其重要的战略意义。使用角色扮演游戏中的技巧，参与者小组必须在空间中找到并使用虚拟物体来解决他们遇到的问题。游戏将有不同的难度级别，以帮助包括年轻人以及年龄较大，不太懂游戏的人。我们将在这个前提下讲述一些关于这个地点的关键故事，并通过音频、数字对象和特征的互动将其带入生活。我们计划的核心是让游客像表演者（在游戏中扮演角色）一样参与博物馆的场地和资产，从而让他们参与到丰富的历史中。我们将会遇到技术和设计上的挑战，因为MR在这种情况下的应用很少，而且更高级的HoloLens头显仍然超出了许多用户的能力范围。我们的目的是记录和评估我们遇到的挑战的方法，与其他研究人员在这个和相关领域分享。这些知识在文化和经济上都具有很高的价值，并将帮助该国开发在游戏和娱乐领域以及教育和培训、医疗保健和商业领域处于MR产品前沿所需的技能和内容。我们还希望利用磁共振体验带来的兴奋，以及博物馆在我们科技史上的地位，鼓励人们对基于stem的学科产生更大的热情。除了向新观众解释博物馆的资产外，我们还将开发可供其他小型博物馆使用的模型和方法，我们将采用各种方法与业界分享我们的研究。该项目是康沃尔郡发展和支持沉浸式媒体设计、专业知识和基础设施的更大努力的一部分，这些将把我们的努力与更广泛的游戏、电影和电视行业联系起来。此次竞标将有助于在开发混合现实应用的技术和设计方面建立专业知识。如果我们要创建有意义和生动的解释性应用程序，可以扩展和丰富参观博物馆的体验，并让游客从他们所拥有的资产和藏品中获得最大的收益，这些都是必要的。即使是在传统媒体和虚拟现实方面拥有专业知识的内容创作者，也缺乏有意义和引人注目的MR体验的设计方法，并且未经大规模测试。如果博物馆想要释放MR的巨大力量来热情和吸引所有年龄段的游客，这个项目的核心技术和设计挑战需要迫切关注。

Mixed Reality (MR) is where digital objects can be overlaid onto real world spaces made possible by wearable headset devices such as Microsoft's HoloLens, or where digital objects are overlaid onto a mobile phone's camera image. This technology has the advantage that a user can see the real place they are in at the same time as seeing 'fictional' objects within the same space which can be interacted with. These exciting developments can be mobilised within our Museums and Heritage sites to bring to life those places and their collections, helping to interpret and animate their hidden histories. This project will develop an application of MR for the use of visitors to the Telegraph Museum at Porthcurno in Cornwall, a small museum focused on the history of transatlantic telecommunications and the site of the first telecommunication cable running between Britain and the US. We will work closely with the staff at the Museum and with the Cornwall Museums Partnership to develop an application that will help the museum to attract wider interest from a younger audience who the Museum has had difficulty appealing to. Our plan is to design a multiplayer game using MR which asks the group to solve a fictional problem that has arisen in the Museum's cable tunnels and which takes place during World War II, when the location was of extreme strategic importance. Employing techniques found in role-playing games, the participant group must find and use virtual objects within the space to solve the problems they encounter. There will be various levels of difficulty in play to help include younger people as well as older, less game literate people. We will use this premise to tell some key stories about the location and bring it to life through interaction using audio, digital objects and characterisation. Central to our plan is to engage visitors with the Museum's locale and assets as performers (playing a role in a game) thereby engaging them with its rich history. We will encounter technical and design challenges because few applications of MR have yet been used in such contexts and the more superior HoloLens headset is still beyond the reach of many users. Our intention is to record and evaluate our approaches to the challenges we encounter to be shared with other researchers in this and related areas. This knowledge has high value culturally and economically and will help the country to develop the skills and content needed to be at the forefront of MR products both in the fields of games and entertainment, as well as in education and training, healthcare and business. We also hope to deploy the excitement around a MR experience, along with the Museum's place in our technological history, to encourage greater enthusiasm for STEM-based subjects. Alongside interpreting the museum's assets for new audiences, we will also develop models and approaches that can be used by other small Museums to do the same, and we will employ methods to share our research with the sector. The project is part of a larger endeavour here in Cornwall to develop and support the growth of immersive media design, expertise and infrastructure that will link our efforts to the broader games, film and TV industry.This bid will help build expertise in the technical and design aspects of developing mixed reality applications. These are needed if we are to create meaningful and vivid interpretational applications that can extend and enrich the experience of visiting a Museum and for visitors to get the most out of the assets and collections that they hold. Even for content creators with expertise in traditional media and VR, the design methodologies for meaningful and compelling MR experiences are lacking and untested at larger scales. Technical and design challenges at the heart of this project require urgent attention if museums are to unlock the considerable power of MR to enthuse and enthral their visitors of all ages.