Virtual Reality for Immersive Visualisation of Turkish Cultural Heritages

Abstract. Technological advances in Virtual Reality (VR) in recent years have the potential to have an ever-increasing impact on our everyday lives. VR makes it possible to explore a digital world in an immersive experience through a Head Mounted Display (HMD). Combined with tools for 3D documentation, modelling and software for creating interactive virtual worlds, VR has the potential to play an important role in the preservation and visualisation of cultural heritage for museums, educational institutions and other cultural sectors. It opens up a new form of scientific communication that can benefit historical and cultural heritage objects that are either damaged, destroyed or too far away from an interested visitor. This article presents a review of three virtual reality projects carried out in collaboration between BİMTAŞ, a company affiliated with the Greater Municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, and the Photogrammetry & Laser Scanning Laboratory of the HafenCity University Hamburg, Germany. The objective of this collaborative endeavour was to exemplify an immersive and interactive visualisation of three historical Turkish monuments (Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, the Rumeli Hisarı fortress in Istanbul, and the Istanbul Çatalca İnceğiz Caves) using the recently developed virtual reality system, HTC Vive. The objective of the projects was to create a virtual reality (VR) representation of the monuments, allowing users to interactively explore them from a first-person perspective.