Why is VR a good idea for museums?

Medieval Shiro Tenmoku style tea bowl by mimirvr on Sketchfab

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This shiro tenmoku (white tenmoku) tea bowl is a piece created by experimental archeologist and potter Sokei Aoyama from Tajimi, Japan. The shiro tenmoku were centre pieces in the tea ceremony in medieaval Japan. Only three - all national treasures - have survived to our times. One of them is confirmed to have originated in Tajimi, a pottery production centre to this day. Master Aoyama was recognised by the city of Tajimi as Holder of an Intangible Cultural Property for his discovery of the technique to make the bowls, a skill forgotten for 500 years. Of particular interest are the cracks, which during years of use turn dark from the tea.
Photogrammetry model by Jason Miller, Lead Technical Artist at Mimir LLC.

Update

Mimir is currently completing a new online VR experience, accessible in VR or on a PC. Visitors will be able to experience a lecture on Mino ware and the samurai in the Mino region of Japan. Those who use a headset will feel present in the lecture hall, and see models like on this page in 3d space. Anyone can participate free of charge from anywhere in the world, any time of the day. We believe this will be the closest possible experience to actually visiting a museum. Please contact us for more information. 
 VR is an abbreviation of Virtual Reality. It is an entirely different way of experiencing digital content because it makes you feel that you are part of the experience, as opposed to watching a photograph or video on a screen, for example. In VR, you actually think you are in a different world. This is what we call immersive computing and presence. You are really there, inside the scene. Like in the real world, when you turn your head the view shifts. Take a step forward and you move inside the scene. You can be or do virtually anything, anywhere in time and space. You can explore what would typically be inexplorable.

Why is this a good thing for museums? Let us list a few reasons:
  • Museums often have a large collection of items but are only able to exhibit of fraction of them
  • The objects are often
    • valuable
    • rare
    • hard to access
    • fragile
    • hard or expensive to transport
  • Museums often lack the financial resources to frequently renew large, physical exhibits
  • Museums need to attract a new generation of visitors who are highly computer literate and have short attention span
All these problems become a non-issue in the virtual world, where nothing can break, has no weight, and fit into a tiny space in a headset or on a computer hard drive.

Also, an immersive experience - one of actually being there - is far more memorable and engaging than any other media format. And last, but not the least, it can be packaged and delivered at a far lower cost than a physical one. 
In short, this is a revolutionary way of telling stories, and what better place to go to enjoy a story than a museum?

Why is Mimir a good exhibition partner?

A 15-century yamajawan, unglazed rice bowl. by Jason Miller on Sketchfab

Photogrammetry and reconstruction by Mimir's Lead Technical Artist Jason Miller. This medieval yamajawan rice bowl is a predecessor to the sophisticated shiro tenmoku above. While the shiro tenmoku was a piece of art use only in the tea ceremony, this bowl filled a practical function in the everyday's life of commoners.
As a VR production company based in Japan we are uniquely positioned to provide Japanese exhibition artifacts and support for museums around the world:
  1. We are a small but multilingual and multicultural company fluent in communications across borders.
  2. We are located in Gifu Prefecture, where there are a rich cultural heritage and a wealth of cultural artefacts and locations. We reach out to other parts of the country as well, to cover all of Japan.
  3. We have been working with local government in the region for several years. The authorities keep a large collection of artifacts and can provide access to cultural sites.
  4. We build experiences on-line where we hold events and provide virtual, guided tours. This allows us to reach out to end users and have a conversation with them for as long as half-an-hour or more. This kind of engagement is unheard of on the normal, "flat" web.
  5. Because of this we stay in touch with a new generation of users and understand their needs and interests.
  6. Many young people are fascinated by Japan. This is not a fad, the so called "soft power" of Japan has influenced millions abroad, whether it be samurai culture, Japanese food and drink, Zen, Japanese aesthetics, modern culture such as comics and animated film. These all blend together extremely well in VR-experiences.
  7. As a small company we have a small overhead and can offer virtual artifacts and experiences at reasonable cost.

​What services do we offer?

VR is our method to tackle the problems museum are now facing. Virtual Reality is a new media, but it needs excellent content like any other media format. To build 3d content focused on Japan, it is a must to be based here, where the objects are located. It also requires a close connection to the holders of the intellectual properties. Face-to-face communication in Japanese is a must. 

Our strength, in other words, is to be physically present at the place of creation of cultural assets, that can be delivered to a physical exhibition space somewhere else in the world. ​We pride ourselves of combining the social communication skills to navigate the red tape and potential miscommunications, with the technical expertise to execute.
"Our strength, in other words, is to be physically present at the place of creation of cultural assets, that can be delivered to a physical exhibition space somewhere else in the world. ​We pride ourselves of combining the social communication skills to navigate the red tape and potential miscommunications, with the technical expertise to execute."
We offer:
  • A catalogue of cultural assets and locations in the Gifu region, centring on  Tajimi city
  • Recreation of these assets in digital form upon request
  • Delivery as individual 3d objects or as part of a fully virtual world
  • Support for the setup and presentation of the virtual world

How do we deliver?

Ceramist Tomonari Kato lives next door to Mimir's offices. Here his award-winning work "Topological Formation" shown against a desert backdrop.
We specialise in building virtual experiences and creating virtual objects using the powerful game engine Unreal Engine 4 as our primary tool for world-building. We use various software packages to populate those world with objects employing two methods:
  • Photogrammetry, which is a camera-based method. We take hundreds of photographs and glue them together to form an object with photorealistic qualities. You can pick it up and scrutinise it in the virtual world.
  • Digital reconstruction. We build artefacts from scratch with software, using reference images to achieve a result not as authentic as with photogrammetry, but more flexible and responsive to the virtual world. This is often an excellent way to build a rich world which necessarily does not need to be an exact copy of reality. In many cases, past eras can not be reconstructed exactly as they were as we don't know what they looked like in detail.
  • Consultancy. VR is only now going into the mainstream, and most people are still unfamiliar with its possibilities. We provide assistance on the technical side of things, as well as communications support between Japan and the surrounding world. We believe this is something very few companies in our industry can offer.
VR is a fascinating technology, as it opens a window too far away worlds and times we could only dream of experience until recently. Museums are some of the best use cases for VR, and we would love to discuss your projects with you to see how we can help!