In recent decades, museums, as fundamental cultural institutions of modern society, have increasingly explored innovative methods and tools for the communication and dissemination of knowledge. This process has led to significant changes in their approaches to visitor engagement. One of the most common strategies for creating interactive content in the museum field is the use of extended reality (XR) technologies and direct haptic experiences that support storytelling and interaction. By combining virtual and real environments, XR can stimulate multiple senses through the addition of digital inputs, thereby expanding the channels of knowledge transmission.
In the museum sector, however, there is still a lack of widespread and shared awareness regarding how virtual and real content should interact and how the most effective experiences for cultural transmission should be designed. The presented case study focuses on the vaulted system of the atrium of Palazzo Mazzonis in Turin, the seat of the Museum of Oriental Art, where a structured and well-tested methodology of geometric decomposition and digital reconstruction has been applied.
Augmented Reality (AR) and a digitally fabricated 3D model have been used to communicate the results of this study to a broad audience, serving different purposes ranging from research and dissemination to tourism and recreational activities.