Interactive stereoscopic viewer for cultural heritage

The purpose of the research project reported here is to create more lifelike representations of cultural heritage items by presenting stereoscopic images based on 3D data. In this paper, the authors report on the work of archiving heritage items in China's National Palace Museum and on the development of an interactive stereoscopic viewer system. A horizontal stereoscopic representation with interactivity is examined as a method of obtaining a 'depth' sensation. The aim is to represent cultural heritage from a low level close to that of the real environment, such as in a museum, and to provide tactile sensation. The viewer system consists of a 3D display using Xpol, a touch panel, and a tilt encoder, the system is controlled by a Windows PC with custom software. The touch panel works for not only general interactions, such as moving the displayed 3D images, but also offers an unusual type of interaction known as 'tracing'. The tilt encoder detects the angle of the display and rotates the 3D images accordingly. These interactions control the coordinates and parallax of the 3D images in real time to provide an experience similar to holding the real object directly. In addition, the authors examine the effectiveness of the viewer system through a subjective evaluation.