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

混合现实(MR)是指通过微软的HoloLens等可穿戴耳机设备将数字对象叠加到现实世界空间，或者将数字对象叠加到手机的摄像头图像上。这项技术的优点是，用户可以看到他们所在的真实位置，同时在相同的空间内看到可以交互的“虚拟”对象。这些令人兴奋的发展可以在我们的博物馆和遗产遗址内动员起来，使这些地方和他们的收藏品栩栩如生，帮助解释和动画他们隐藏的历史。该项目将开发一个MR应用程序，供康沃尔波特库诺电报博物馆的参观者使用，这是一个专注于跨大西洋电信历史的小型博物馆，也是第一条连接英国和美国的电信电缆的所在地。我们将与博物馆的工作人员和康沃尔博物馆伙伴关系密切合作，开发一种应用程序，帮助博物馆吸引难以吸引的年轻观众的更广泛的兴趣。我们的计划是设计一个使用MR的多人游戏，要求团队解决博物馆电缆隧道中出现的一个虚构的问题，这个问题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。利用角色扮演游戏中的技术，参与者小组必须在空间中找到并使用虚拟对象来解决他们遇到的问题。游戏中将有不同程度的难度，以帮助包括年轻人以及年长的、不太懂游戏的人。我们将利用这一前提来讲述一些关于地点的关键故事，并通过使用音频、数字对象和特征的互动来使其栩栩如生。我们计划的核心是吸引游客与博物馆的地点和资产作为表演者(在游戏中扮演一个角色)，从而让他们参与到博物馆丰富的历史中来。我们将遇到技术和设计挑战，因为MR的应用程序还很少在这种环境中使用，而更优秀的HoloLens耳机仍然无法为许多用户所用。我们的目的是记录和评估我们应对挑战的方法，以便与这一领域和相关领域的其他研究人员分享。这些知识具有很高的文化和经济价值，将有助于该国发展所需的技能和内容，使其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产品的领先地位。我们还希望利用围绕MR体验的兴奋，以及博物馆在我们科技史上的地位，鼓励人们对基于STEM的主题产生更大的热情。除了为新观众解读博物馆的资产外，我们还将开发可供其他小型博物馆使用的模型和方法，并将采用各种方法与业界分享我们的研究。该项目是康沃尔更大的努力的一部分，旨在发展和支持身临其境的媒体设计、专业知识和基础设施的发展，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。这一项目将有助于积累开发混合现实应用程序的技术和设计方面的专业知识。如果我们要创建有意义和生动的解释性应用程序，以扩展和丰富参观博物馆的体验，并让参观者最大限度地利用他们持有的资产和藏品，那么这些就是必要的。即使是在传统媒体和虚拟现实领域拥有专业知识的内容创作者，也缺乏有意义且引人入胜的MR体验的设计方法，而且在更大范围内也没有经过考验。如果博物馆想要释放MR的巨大力量，让所有年龄段的参观者热情起来，那么这个项目核心的技术和设计挑战就需要紧急关注。

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.