Lidar and the Design of a Community-Engaged Digital Heritage Exhibit

A persistent challenge in digital heritage and museology is how to meaningfully integrate technical documentation—such as 3D lidar scans—into exhibits that are engaging, informative, and inclusive. In this paper, we describe how participatory, community-engaged methods shaped the design of an interactive, thematic timeline exhibit at the Tampa Bay History Center (TBHC). The resulting “Tampa Topography and Timelines” exhibit is a spatial and sensory landscape that explores themes of urban expansion and transit, Tampa's changing skyline, and heritage at risk. Each theme integrates 3D visualizations of key sites – Union Station, the Ybor City Casitas, a heritage streetcar network, and Battery Laidley – with community narratives that connect these places to broader themes of immigration, military conflict, urbanization, and the ongoing struggle for preservation amid displacement and development. This multimodal approach to digital storytelling bridges the gap between technical cultural heritage documentation and first-person storytelling, resulting in a more engaging and memorable museum experience.