Hello,
I probably have more personal use than museum experience on this subject, but I thought that I would add in. At one time, I suggested that my museum include some sort of virtual reality experiences using 360 photos and video to experience local places that they couldn't get to normally, like our collections or inside something like the Gibson guitar factory. Beyond just the use VR headsets, I suggested the idea of also including Ipads to display some of the 360 content. It wouldn't be quite as immersive, but would allow you to still look around the 360 degree world and be easier to setup/manage for multiple areas.
I don't know what kind of setup you are using, but there are some standalone headsets from Oculus and Google Daydream that recently came out. They are cheaper than the Vive and Rift that need to be tethered to a PC, and less clunky than a Google Cardboard setup. Another suggestion, some of the Microsoft mixed reality headsets are going for cheap and perform all of their tracking from the headset.
Oculus Go | Oculus
Daydream - Standalone VR I have experienced the AR/Project Tango at the Detroit Institute of Art, which was pretty interesting to see. I believe that they took my drivers license and in exchange gave me a phone with the Project Tango installed to use around the museum.
Another museum that you may want to check out for VR use, is the Grand Rapids Public Museum. They created a VR experience for their whale skeleton named Finny.
Meet Finny.
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Cody Cook
Interpretation Specialist
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
Kalamazoo MI
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 09:52 AM
From: Charnell McMullen Bushman
Subject: Virtual Reality Headsets
Hello,
I am wondering if anyone is using Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality in your exhibits and how you facilitate it. We are prototyping VR head sets in our exhibits right now. We were hoping to have something that people could use on their own, but it doesn't seem user friendly enough. We are using Oculus Headsets to show a 360 video of our insects up close from inside of their tanks. People have trouble with the equipment and often exit the video to explore other things on the headset, get lost, and then return the headsets (now not set properly) to the head rest.
We were wondering:
What equipment is other using for these type of experiences?
Do you have staff there to guide the experience or is it self-guided?
How often and how do you clean your headsets?
Thanks for your help!
Parker McMullen Bushman
Vice President of Programs, Interpretation and Exhibits, Butterfly Pavilion
Pronouns: She/Her or They/Them
Address: 6252 West 104th Avenue Westminster, CO 80020
Office: 720.974.1863 Cell: 773-426-2738
Email: pmcmullenbushman@butterflies.org
Website: www.butterflies.org
The Butterfly Pavilion is a non-profit, invertebrate zoo
with the mission of fostering an appreciation of butterflies
and other invertebrates while educating the public about
the need for conservation of threatened habitats in the
tropics and around the world.
'If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse.' Sir David Attenborough