MRT Virtual, guiding app with Augmented Reality
The Royal Museums of Turin is one of the city’s most significant and most visited museum complexes, which in 2019 alone reached almost half a million visitors. To maintain this popularity, the institution has launched GoDigital!, a strategic plan for its digital transformation, which seeks to change the nature of its relationship with the public in order to make it more participatory, placing visitors at the center of the museum’s action.
Within this framework, Visivalab has developed MRT Virtual. This new app has launched after the reopening of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in 2018, which was under restoration since 1997. The app provides an interactive and immersive experience achieved with Augmented Reality components that bring to life the architecture and geometries of the Chapel and its altar.
CLIENT Musei Reali di Torino, Consulta per la Valorizzazione dei Beni Artistici e Culturali di Torino
PARTNER Ribes Solutions
YEAR 2021
FEATURES
- Self-guided itinerary
- Immersive experience
- Augmented Reality
- 3D scan and photogrammetry
- Contributes to MRT digital transformation
- Scalable app with modular contents
- UX/UI
- Available in iOS and Android
- Production of a promotion video
Project
The Chapel of the Holy Shroud’s inauguration presented the perfect scenario for the Royal Museums to expand their digital content offer, hence they commissioned us to develop their new official app. With MRT Virtual, we present the itinerary more dynamically and interactively by creating new narrative experiences that actively involve the public.
Firstly, we carried out a 3D scan of the architectural and sculptural complex, thanks to which we have developed an immersive experience that works as Augmented Reality (AR). It allows the user to discover its geometries in detail and explore the different spaces from his smartphone.
The app presents the information in several formats, which describe both the architecture and iconography of the monuments, as well as their historical context. In addition, it divulges the restoration process and the work of professionals involved, which may engage a broader audience.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
PROGRAMMING
- React Native
SOFTWARE
- PhotoScan
- After Effects
HOW DOES VIRTUAL MRT WORK?
MRT Virtual is available for free in the app stores of the main operating systems. Once downloaded, the user can decide the order of his visit and itinerary, which divides into two different parts: the Chapel and the altar.
By selecting the AR mode –which redirects to the phone’s camera–, you can scan the monument. The icons that contain the information tabs appear overlayed on the image when you scan over the point where they are pinned.
In the initial proposal, we anchored the AR function to the user’s physical position through QR codes, but this option was rejected so visitors could freely explore the itinerary. In consequence, the app can also be enjoyed remotely, maximizing its scope.
EXPLORING THE CHAPEL AND ITS ALTAR
The content related to the Shroud’s altar is also divided into its historical stages: how it was in the beginning, the damages caused by the fire it endured and its current state after the restoration. We have also created a tridimensional model of the monument that can be turned and explored from different angles in each of the phases described above.
The app includes a section dedicated to its symbology and another one focused on the relic it harbored, which is now displayed in the Royal Chapel of Turin Cathedral. Finally, we can watch a simulation of the monument engulfed by the flames, which takes us back to the fire’s fateful night.
Although the mechanics for exploring the Chapel are practically identical, scanning over the architecture activates a different type of content. This information is presented with the Virtual Reality videos we produced specifically for the complex’s reopening and the exhibition dedicated to it. The videos talk about the Chapel’s history and its relationship with the city while showing a 3D reconstruction from scratch and aerial images of the building and its surroundings.
MRT DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
MRT Virtual is conceived to be scalable so as to include other spaces and expand the museums’ ecosystem of digital content aimed at the public, as well as being able to implement further interactive and gamification functions in the same app. In fact, the first phase of this expansion has already begun with the inclusion of the Royal Gardens in the itinerary.
Visivalab has already worked on other projects that contribute to the digital transformation of the Royal Museums. In 2018, we designed a Virtual Reality experience accompanied by other technological installations for the inauguration of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, and also a Gamification app for the Galleria Sabauda has been projected for 2022.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
PROGRAMMING
- React Native
SOFTWARE
- PhotoScan
- After Effects
