The Project

About the project
VRarch

The main purpose of the project is

To develop interactive VR applications that realistically visualize historical buildings for restoration education in 3D and to train human resources who can develop these applications.

Our activities
About VRarch Project

Historical buildings are damaged or become unusable in time or due to reasons such as earthquakes, war, fire, which have much more destructive effects. Restoration works recycle these buildings; however, this process is complex and requires expertise. Therefore, students receive training on planning and carrying out restoration works in the architecture departments of higher education institutions. It has become necessary to provide this training via distance education due to obstacles to formal education, such as epidemics in the current and upcoming period. However, since this training is mostly requiring practice, it is quite difficult to provide this training with the conventional training methods in distance education. Because lecturers and students should examine the buildings to be restored together and make on-site measurements and analyses for the restoration work to be done. The fact that these works cannot be carried out on the building causes students to not receive a good education on restoration courses. In this project, therefore, VR applications will be developed to be used as an educational tool in the applied courses of architecture, especially in the field of restoration. This project will be a new approach to architectural restoration education. The developed VR content will have almost the same appearance as the real buildings. With the help of this software, the lecturers and students who wear the VR headset in restoration lessons will have the opportunity to interact with a historical building in a virtual class. They will be able to discuss the details of new restoration procedures that have been made or can be done in this environment. Thanks to these VR applications, the lecturers and students will be in the same virtual environment even if they are in different physical environments. In this context, we will design 3D models of targeted historical buildings and transfer these models to game engines and interactively visualize there. Then, we will implement various interaction techniques to these models by coding to provide interactive VR applications. We also develop an AI model which recognizes the user gesture automatically in VR applications. The administrative staff, academicians, students, and researchers in the fields of architecture and informatics from Karabuk University, Birmingham City University, and the University of Salento will participate in the project activities. 


Activities
Project Activities
After collection of a detailed data about the historical building VR applications will be developed by project participant from each project partner.
The partners, together, will prepare a video tutorial series to teach the VR application development steps in detail to target groups. The trainees, who watch these tutorials, will be able to develop VR applications of different historical buildings and ensure that these applications become widespread.
Dissemination activities such as multiplier events, pilot trainings, seminars will be held for target groups as well. The education quality of higher education institutions using the project outputs will increase and they will provide students with a more practical education.
Project partners will prepare a user guide which, explains how to use these VR applications in the lessons, by sharing experience and knowledge by the partners.
A curriculum called "VR Application Development for Buildings" for computer science departments will be developed to raise the human resources to develop these applications.

The general objectives of the Project VRarch
  • to increase the quality of higher education by providing new course materials and training methods, those can be used in restoration education,
  • to create a new area of employment in the field of informatics by training human resources who can develop these applications
  • to protect our cultural heritage by creating a VR application archive that can be used even after centuries in the restoration of historical buildings

Target Groups
Target groups of the project
Lecturers and students in the field of architecture and restoration of universities

Lecturers and students in the field of computer science of universities

Restoration firms and employees

Software experts


Benefits
The long-term benefits of the project are:
  • VR-based education models will be widespread in other fields of higher education institutions.
  • VR application archive will be created that will assist in the restoration process of historical buildings in a more economical and more original way.
  • Human resources that can develop these applications will be trained, and a new employment area will be created in the field of informatics.
  • VR application can be used for promotion of historical buildings.

Who are our partners
Partners

Karabuk University

University of Salento

Birmingham City University