The integration of Extended Reality (XR) technologies is transforming the role of museums from static repositories of knowledge to interactive, experiential spaces. This shift is driven by the evolving digitalized public, characterized by heightened expectations for immersive, engaging, and personalized content consumption. Museums now employ innovative strategies, such as edutainment, to merge education with entertainment, fostering deeper emotional and cognitive connections with visitors. XR technologies, encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), play a crucial role in enhancing cultural heritage interpretation, visualization, and interaction. In the contemporary scenario, many applications are revolutionizing visitor engagement in museum environments by enabling digital storytelling, gamified learning, and interactive exploration and, as a long-term result, improving knowledge retention and fostering a stronger appreciation for cultural heritage among the visiting digitalized public. Despite the transformative potential of XR, challenges persist, including accessibility issues, financial constraints, and the need for specialized staff training. Future research aims to refine XR applications by employing frameworks to optimize usability and engagement. As museums continue to embrace digital transformation, XR technologies will be instrumental in ensuring their long-term relevance, enhancing visitor satisfaction, and bridging the gap between cultural heritage preservation and contemporary digital advancements.
The Sacred Space Dimension. Interactive Digital Narratives for the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice
The essay focuses on the valorisation of pictorial works to be brought back into their original exhibition contexts, reflecting on the contribution of today’s digital technologies in enhancing their understanding and enjoyment. Starting from this assumption, the focus is on the principles of digital storytelling to be implemented in installations capable of maintaining a continuous dialogue between physical and digital space, through video projections interacting with reconstructions of 3D-printed architecture, obtained through careful perspective restitutions. In particular, there are three canvases depicting some of the most important events in the life of Saint Mark, painted by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini and by Giovanni Mansueti, respectively for Guardian Grande Marco Pellegrini and Jacopo Dardani. They were once kept in the Sala dell’Albergo of the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice, where their return is now hoped for. The multimedia installation planned for the Sala Capitolare is thus configured as an edutainment route that anticipates the rediscovery of the original works, to be contemplated only after understanding their specific meanings.
Learning About Pastoral Settlements Through Interactive Videos
Interaction, a fundamental concept in communication and technological processes, has undergone profound transformations with digitalization. This study explores the use of interactive videos in the representation of the pastoral cultural heritage of Aspromonte, analysing their educational and dissemination potential. The approach adopted integrates historical research and digital visualization techniques, to offer an immersive and customizable experience. The construction of the contents takes place on the basis of a data collection composed of digital surveys, 3D models, textual information, etc., acquired during the conduct of a broader research on the theme of the mountain and the material traces left by human pastoral activities. Interactive videos allow users to digitally explore abandoned pastoral settlements, accessing multimedia content and participating in non-linear narrative paths. The use of QR codes and online platforms expands accessibility, favouring the dissemination of cultural heritage even outside the academic field. The proposed experience is configured as a combination of edutainment and digital storytelling, laying the foundations for new forms of cultural fruition. The results highlight the effectiveness of these tools in engaging the public and enhancing difficult-to-access sites, outlining future development prospects for more complex and interactive digital narratives.
Augmented Reality Experiences for a Phygital Exhibition in the World of Catalan Polyhedra: Polyhedra. The Realm of Geometric Beauty by Adriano Graziotti
The study presented is part of a broader line of research in which the use of Extended Reality is investigated in the field of geometry education and the exploitation of the cultural heritage related to this subject area. In this study, a Phygital Exhibition is proposed that brings together knowledge related to Catalan polyhedra: their history, geometric characteristics, methods for their construction, and cultural heritage related to them. In particular, two types of Augmented Reality marker-based applications are proposed through which to access the heritage of knowledge related to Catalan polyhedra: the Phygital Edition of Polyhedra. The Realm of Geometric Beauty by Adriano Graziotti—which constitutes a particular piece within the history of this class of polyhedra—in which the pages of the booklet are used as a collection of image targets; and a collection of “augmented physical models” of Catalan polyhedra, that is, a set of physical reproductions of Catalan polyhedra or the polyhedra from which they are generated, used as model targets of the application. The experiments conducted demonstrate how it is possible to use Augmented Reality to create multimedia devices that facilitate the understanding of three-dimensional problems and into which it is possible to convey the heritage of knowledge—always in progress—related to a given scientific topic.
Easily Accessible Technology for Architectural Storytelling: Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, an Experimental Study
The paper presents an experimental research project focused on the dissemination of the architectural and urban history of Palazzo Ducale in Genoa through accessible digital storytelling and augmented reality technologies. The study develops interactive itineraries based on QR codes, mobile applications, digital maps, hand-drawn visual narratives, virtual tours, and AR overlays to communicate the historical transformations of the palace and its urban surroundings to non-specialist audiences. Using smartphones and tablets, users can visualize historical reconstructions, architectural changes, decorative elements, and inaccessible spaces directly superimposed onto the existing urban and architectural context. The project emphasizes inclusivity, ease of use, visual communication, and edutainment, proposing lightweight and accessible AR systems as tools for heritage dissemination and public engagement.
The Grimaldina Tower in Genoa. A Case Study Between Technology and Visual Communication
The paper presents an ongoing research project focused on the Grimaldina Tower in Genoa, combining virtual tours, XR technologies, projected augmented reality, immersive panoramic photography, and visual storytelling for cultural heritage dissemination. Due to the tower’s limited accessibility during restoration works, the study develops a digital communication strategy based on 360-degree panoramic imaging, interactive virtual tours, and Lightform projected augmented reality systems to support inclusive and educational access to the site. The workflow includes historical research, spherical image acquisition, immersive navigation, interactive hotspots, projected storytelling, and augmented overlays aimed at enhancing the readability of wall inscriptions, drawings, and decorative traces left by prisoners over centuries. The project emphasizes accessibility, edutainment, and intuitive visual communication for heterogeneous audiences through immersive and non-invasive digital technologies.
Semantically Annotated 3D Material Supporting the Design of Natural User Interfaces for Architectural Heritage
With the advent of artificial intelligence and natural user interfaces, the need for multimedia material that can be semantically interpreted in real time becomes critical. In the field of 3D architectural survey, a significant amount of research has been conducted to allow domain experts represent semantic data while keeping spatial references. Such data becomes valuable for natural user interfaces designed to let non-expert users obtain information about architectural heritage. In this paper, we present the architectural data collection and annotation procedure adopted in the Cultural Heritage Orienting Multimodal Experiences (CHROME) project. This procedure aims at providing conversational agents with fast access to fine-detailed semantic data linked to the available 3D models. We will discuss how this will make it possible to support multimodal user interaction and generate cultural heritage presentations.
The digital anastylosis and the semantic segmentation: the case of the Magna Graecia masks in the Mediterranean area
Fifty years of archaeological activities carried out in the Aeolian Islands have made it possible to bring to light the most complete collection of theatrical masks of the ancient world, an important testimony of the material culture of the theatrical world, during the Classical era. The theatrical masks, preserved at the ‘L. Bernabò Brea’ of Lipari, may be schematized, from a morphological point of view, in three distinct degrees: ‘whole masks’, whole fragments and ‘mute’ fragments. The digital reconstruction and anastylosis workflow follow the same breakdown of these three degrees of status: they have been developed through an inverted pyramid trend, in a scalar and hierarchical way. The universality of the method makes it repeatable and universally applicable to other archaeological finds belonging to a proto-industrial and serial artisan production.
The research aims to define a series of methodologies and techniques to be adopted for the direct survey of archaeological artefacts in fragments and for the definition of a reconstruction and digital anastylosis protocol, with the aim to restore a new memory to the so-called ‘mute’ finds. In order to clarify the genealogical and filiation relationships between the masks, a geometric grid of conspicuous points was identified on each digital model which allowed to rearrange the finds on the basis of their dimensional relationships and to advance, at the same time, a parallel hypothesis of segmentation and semantic annotation, it experimenting the most modern and innovative semantic annotation practices for the Cultural Heritage, in order to improve the understanding, the cataloging and enhancement of the historical data.