Developing immersive experience at Caistor Roman Town

This project (a partnership between the University of Nottingham, Jam Creative Studios and the Norfolk Archaeological Trust) will use the site of the Roman town of Venta Icenorum (Norfolk) to develop and evaluate new methods of site interpretation through the use of an immersive virtual reality experience. As a Roman town that did not see subsequent development in the medieval and later periods, Venta Icenorum is one of the UK's most significant archaeological sites and has been the subject of a major programme of geophysical survey and excavation by the University of Nottingham since 2006. In common with many archaeological sites, there are few visible remains at Venta and the site has limited infrastructure for visitors. A new site interpretation scheme created by the applicants in 2015 used a 3D reconstruction of the site viewed using an app for Android and Apple mobile devices and containing an Augmented Reality (AR) element that allowed users to view the ancient town against the present landscape.

The 2015 AR model was the latest iteration of a long history of visualisation at Venta that started with painted reconstructions and moved on to a series of 3D reconstructions. All of these, however, were passive encounters for the viewer presenting a single interpretation of the site. The new project will create a more dynamic immersive experience in which the visitor will use their mobile device to interact with characters and animals within the town and experience the town in different weather and seasons. In this pilot project, the visitor will take a route from the South Gate to the forum of the Roman town and will be guided by one of the town's Roman residents in animated form who will show them points of interest. Their progress will trigger a series of events and interactions with other characters and animals and the user will hear the ambient sounds and speech of a town in Roman Britain and will see the sunlit town of previous reconstructions transformed into a winter townscape of mud, snow and smoke.

In order to achieve the new project will address a series of technical challenges relating to the use of location-based AR in a fairly featureless landscape with variable GPS coverage by combining existing locational techniques with new markerless AR technologies with the aim of piloting scalable and transferable methods for delivering immersive experiences within open landscapes It will also evaluate the issue of optimizing VR and AR experiences to operate and be sustainable in a world of rapidly developing rival platforms and for on-site and off-site use. Using fully immersive VR on the site itself remains impractical for safety reasons but the rapid rise in affordable fully immersive VR technologies for use at home and in education means that potentially costly VR/AR models need to envisage multiple applications. The project will also address the interpretative challenges raised by creating speech, dress and physical appearance for a population known only from archaeological evidence. A process of evaluation will rigorously evaluate audience responses to this new experience to inform its future development. Finally the project will further develop the existing partnership between the University of Nottingham, Jam Creative Studio (who are pioneering innovative approaches to heritage interpretation using new technologies) and the Norfolk Archaeological Trust (who own and manage a range of heritage sites across Norfolk).

By trialling immersive experience at Venta Icenorum and evaluating visitor responses to it, this project will have actual and potential benefits for a range of stakeholders.

Heritage organisations - the project addresses the needs of those engaged in heritage management and interpretation, particularly in the presentation of heritage in a landscape setting. Such organisations are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by immersive technologies that allow the hidden assets and stories of sites to be brought to the public in ways that are exciting and innovative and that change the visitor from passive observer to active participant. At Venta this is particularly relevant to the Norfolk Archaeological Trust (NAT) who are facilitating our project and who own a range of sites (including Tasborough Fort, Warham Camp and Burgh Castle) that share similar challenges to audience engagement as Venta. These include an absence of museum buildings and infrastructure such as mains power, intermittent or variable mobile coverage and heritage assets that are largely buried or intangible despite being of national or international significance. The project proposed here will be of immediate regional relevance in exploring the potential for AR and VR technologies in relation to the NAT and it's other properties, but will also help demonstrate the possibilities afforded by immersive technologies to other heritage organisations and practitioners in the UK and internationally. By improving the interpretation and public understanding of sites, heritage organisations can better persuade policy makers and the public that such assets require preservation and investment in the face of pressures on land-use and financial resources.

Immersive tech sector - the project results will be of clear importance to others working in the field of location-based AR and immersive experiences, providing evidence of audience response to such technologies and demonstrating additional ways in which such technologies can be used beyond their obvious value as a means of entertainment. As noted in the Technical Plan, the project team will document the approach taken to developing and evaluating the mobile app, and will release this as an open access case study for others undertaking similar digital output-focused projects.

Heritage audiences and site visitors - the project aims to improve the visitor experience of heritage sites both as an on-site visitor and as a remote visitor. Members of the public who engage with heritage as a leisure activity are ultimately the largest potential group to benefit from the project as it strives to improve the experience of using new technologies in the context of heritage visiting. Members of the public who cannot for whatever reason access heritage sites will have greater equality of access to sites enabled by immersive technologies and, as a consequence, to the informal learning and shared cultural experience that comes as a result of visiting.

Education sector (primary, secondary and tertiary) - the project will provide remote and on-site AR/VR experiences of the Roman town that can be adapted for different pedagogical levels ranging from stimulating interest in Key Stage 2 pupils to university seminar groups exploring issues of language and identity in relation to the different characters employed. VR platforms such as Oculus Rift are increasingly utilised in schools and colleges, while the ubiquity of gaming and mobile technology means that most people under 30 are increasingly comfortable with accessing information through such means. In addition the results of the project and its digital outputs will be used within the major schools and museums outreach programme of the ERC Latin Now project with which we are collaborating on the character dialogue (see Letter of Support).