Il contributo presenta un progetto didattico multidisciplinare focalizzato sulla ricostruzione virtuale e la comunicazione museografica di un ambiente di Villa Adriana. Attraverso rilievo digitale (fotogrammetria con camere 360°), analisi geometrica e modellazione 3D basata su fonti storiche (in particolare Palladio), vengono sviluppate diverse ipotesi ricostruttive. Tali modelli sono successivamente utilizzati per la progettazione di esperienze immersive in realtà virtuale e aumentata, finalizzate sia alla fruizione remota sia al supporto alla visita in situ. Il lavoro integra approcci scientifici e interpretativi, evidenziando il ruolo delle tecnologie XR nella valorizzazione e comunicazione del patrimonio archeologico.
Immersive Experiences for the Re-contextualization of Statues of the Goddess Sekhmet
This paper presents a multidisciplinary workflow for the digital reconstruction and immersive re-contextualization of the Sekhmet statues preserved at the Museo Egizio in Turin. Combining archaeological research, 3D modeling, and virtual reality technologies, the study reconstructs the original architectural contexts of the statues—specifically the Temple of Amenhotep III and the Temple of Ptah—and explores multiple hypotheses regarding their spatial arrangement. The resulting VR experiences enable users to navigate reconstructed environments and interact with contextual information, supporting both scholarly investigation and public dissemination. The research highlights the potential of immersive technologies as heuristic and communicative tools in cultural heritage.
Augmented Reality and Avatars for Museum Heritage Storytelling
This paper presents an augmented reality storytelling system designed to enhance museum accessibility, interpretation, and visitor engagement through the use of animated avatars and 3D reconstructions. Developed by a multidisciplinary team at Politecnico di Torino, the project focuses on three sculptures from the Museum of Oriental Art (MAO) in Turin that illustrate the evolution of Buddha iconography in the Mathura region of northern India. The workflow combines photogrammetric survey, philological reconstruction of missing parts, lightweight 3D modelling, avatar animation, and mobile AR deployment through Unity, Vuforia, and ARCore. A virtual human guide accompanies visitors through the exhibition space, narrating historical content, indicating directions, and explaining stylistic transformations and hypothetical restorations. Reconstructed additions are visually differentiated from the originals to ensure scientific transparency. The study demonstrates how AR and virtual guides can transform traditional museum visits into immersive and inclusive learning experiences, improving communication for audiences of different ages, cultures, and educational backgrounds.
Cultural Sprawl: The Opportunities of AR for Museum Communication
This paper explores how Augmented Reality can extend museum communication beyond institutional walls by connecting cultural collections with urban public space. Developed through a collaboration between the Museo Egizio of Turin and Politecnico di Torino, the project proposes a mobile AR application centered on the funerary assemblage of Kha and Merit. Users engage with interactive storytelling and gamified experiences distributed across key locations in Turin, where digital avatars and reconstructed artefacts appear in real environments through AR. The app combines 3D modelling, animation, educational narratives, and location-based interaction to create new relationships between museum objects, city landmarks, and visitors. Through playful tasks involving the senet game, the Book of the Dead, Merit’s toiletries, and a final X-ray preview of the museum galleries, the system encourages users to visit the museum while learning about ancient Egyptian life and beliefs. The research demonstrates AR’s potential to transform museums into distributed cultural ecosystems accessible before, during, and beyond the physical visit.
Re-contextualizing the standing Sekhmet statues in the Temple of Ptah at Karnak through digital reconstruction and VR experience
Recent trends in the Digital Humanities – conceived as new modalities of collaborative, transdisciplinary and computational research and presentation – also strongly influence research approaches and presentation practices in museums. Indeed, ongoing projects in museums have considerably expanded digital access to data and information, documentation and visualization of ancient ruins and objects. In addition, 3D modelling and eXtended Reality opened up new avenues of interacting with a wider public through digital reconstructions that allow both objects and sites to be presented through visual narratives based on multidisciplinary scholarly research. The article illustrates the use of 3D digital reconstruction and virtual reality to re-contextualise standing statues of Sekhmet in the Temple of Ptah at Karnak, where they were found in 1818. Today, they are on display at Museo Egizio, Turin. The theoretical framework of the research and the operational workflow – based on the study of the available archaeological, textual, and pictorial data – is presented here.