Interactive communication and Cultural Heritage

New forms of cultural heritage's communication increasingly see the opportunity to the visitor to interact with the exhibit. The visitor does not incorporate any more information proposed in a passive and traditional way, but enters actively in the process of exploration and/or learning, deciding the path of communication/disclosure most congenial to him. With this new way of visiting and learning, are multiplying museological exhibitions in which scientific and educational content are structured so as to be received by the visitors in a "subjective" way, through the use of instruments that can detect the intentions/ actions/movements of the visitor himself, turning them into human/machine interactions. The developed application, in turn, allows multiple knowledge permutations/variations on a single object, for a better understanding of the phenomena and/or nature of the same object. The procedure at the base of this pipeline includes a series of chained actions: 1) recognition of an

New forms of cultural heritage's communication increasingly see the opportunity to the visitor to interact with the exhibit. The visitor does not incorporate any more information proposed in a passive and traditional way, but enters actively in the process of exploration and/or learning, deciding the path of communication/disclosure most congenial to him. With this new way of visiting and learning, are multiplying museological exhibitions in which scientific and educational content are structured so as to be received by the visitors in a "subjective" way, through the use of instruments that can detect the intentions/ actions/movements of the visitor himself, turning them into human/machine interactions. The developed application, in turn, allows multiple knowledge permutations/variations on a single object, for a better understanding of the phenomena and/or nature of the same object. The procedure at the base of this pipeline includes a series of chained actions: 1) recognition of an object or area of interest using a 3D laser scanning. In this way it is possible to obtain a 3D model with the double function of representing the object itself and, at the same time, allowing the use of the Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z) of each point of the 3D model to handle the mode of interaction of the visitor/scholar; 2) the development of an interactive application and the making of an effective interface interaction man/computer; 3) making a human/computer interaction through the use of tools created for the video games, such as the Kinect and the leap motion 3D; 4) planning the exhibition set by defining the interactive area (box, corner, wall) and placing within the means input/output tools (projector, kinect, leap motion 3D). A real application of the procedure described has been prepared for the area of the Forum of Nerva in Rome, located to the east of Via dei Fori Imperiali, where there are some columns and friezes remainings of the imperial period. The visitor has the opportunity to use, from a certain location, his finger as a pointer, in the natural gesture of "pointing out" the object of his interest, placed in front of him. On site the movement of the finger matches the lighting of the part indicated by a directional spotlight, thanks to the movement tracking of the finger obtained with a kinect or a leap motion 3D device. To the action of pointing the finger, corresponds from the point of view of the computer application, a detection by the Kinect of the position of the finger itself on the 3D model detected by the 3D laser scan procedure and now made "invisible". When the finger stops for more than 5 seconds on a point of interest starts a video explaining the history or nature of the part of the selected object. The video is projected on a portion of flooring placed in front of the visitor. The same exploratory mode can be exported to the room on the Forum of Nerva present in the nearby Museum of the Imperial Forums. During the paper session can be given a live performance of the above described application.