Digital Egypt: Museums of the Future.

Guest blogger: Giancarlo Amati (Digital Developer at the Petrie Museum)

 

On the 3^rd of November 2012, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology organized “Digital Egypt: Museums of the Future”, a showcase of 3D interactive applications result from Petrie Museum research into the use of 3D technology in the heritage sector. The 3D interactive applications are also part of a new upcoming exhibition, titled “3D Encounters: where Science meets Heritage”, specially designed to celebrate the opening of the new UCL-Q campus in Doha,Qatar.

 

 

The new digital exhibition aims at showing emerging museum professionals how 3D technology (such as laser scanning, augmented reality and 3D object reconstruction) can contribute to in the study of cultural heritage in the areas of Museum Studies (Tour of the Nile, In Touch with the Past, and 3D Encounters), Conservation (with A Modern Make Over and Connecting the Past), and Archaeology (with “The Identity of Inati“, and “Making Many“).

The public response was great, with lots of – enthusiastic visitors who gave us suggestions as to how to improve the current interactive applications and what to develop next . Clearly, there is an appetite for this type of interaction with collections: visitors asked that applications include more objects and information about the collection. The public also felt that museum visits are enhanced by hand-held device applications (Tour of the Nile and The Identity of Inaty) because they provide a means of increasing learning by providing  extended descriptions and the ability to interact with 3D reconstructions of artefacts.