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Huanghetitan Comes Alive! AR “National Taiwan Museum in your Hand” “Augments” Your Imagination Towards Paleontology

  • Date:2020-08-03

Have your ever imagined the episode where the exhibits come to life in Night at the Museum can really come true? With the help of AR technology, this is no longer a dream! To promote Taiwan’s AR technology, National Taiwan Museum, Arplanet, and Mr. Fossil have teamed up to work on “National Taiwan Museum in your Hand,” a project supported by Industrial Development Bureau. The project marks the first time a domestic museum uses AR Interior Positioning System to “resurrect” prehistoric creatures and fossils. AR technology not only brings the exhibits to life, it also allows the audience to interact with the exhibits, thereby adding further interest and possibilities to the education of popular science.

Hong Shi-yo, director of National Taiwan Museum, has said that in order to bring the exhibits closer to the audience, and to make them easier to understand, the museum has recently made use of technology to create an environment where child visitors can do active learning, and induce audience participation through sensory experiences and interactive exhibition devices. The AR system corresponds to the future trend of museum collection and audience experience. With the collaboration of cross-disciplinary teams, prehistoric creatures and fossils are "resurrected" to satisfy the needs of the audience, which not only makes the museum's guided tours more intriguing and diverse, but also creates a beautiful and unforgettable museum experience for all visitors.

Lin Jun-xiu(林俊秀), head of Industrial Development Bureau, has said that the global economy has changed rapidly and brought forth uncertainties in recent times. Every industry is under great pressure, so Industrial Development Bureau is active in encouraging Taiwanese enterprises to apply technologies, so as to stimulate innovation in different industries. The government is currently promoting digital content industry so that XR can be applied in different industries in the future, thereby strengthening cooperation and exchanges between technology and industries.

AR (augmented reality) technology is the future trend for museum collection and audience experience. Compared with VR (virtual reality), AR applications are more convenient, and people can enjoy interaction just by using mobile phones or tablets. "National Taiwan Museum in your Hand" uses AR Indoor Positioning System for the first time, allowing the public to interact with the exhibitions virtually. In addition to guided tours and marking out key exhibits, it also combines 3D images to bring the original static fossils or bone specimens to life. Besides using technology to bring out unseen aspects of the museum's collections, it also diversifies the museum's educational forms, transforming personal mobile devices into personal guides, and injecting new vitality into the museum's educational approaches and audience services.

Bai Bi-zhen(白璧珍), CEO of Arplanet, said that after the company obtained the patent for AR indoor positioning in 2018, it took the company two years to design and find the right field for application. The museum was eventually selected as the place of application because it has educational, learning, and entertaining purposes. The use of AR indoor positioning technology is also integrated with the AR platform, allowing visitors to be able to experience AR immediately by using their cellphones upon entering the museum. This has been an example of successful AR application in daily life. We believe that AR will be further implemented in different fields, providing people with rich and interesting new experiences.

Mr. Fossil’s CEO Xiao Yu-fu (蕭語富), said that in the past, the museum has been using multimedia technology as the display medium, and it has not yet been able to display exhibits in their true appearances. Now with AR technology, the process from bones, growing flesh to complete restoration of prehistoric creatures can now be realized. This can not only bring surprise to the visitors, it will bring about systematic exhibition applications in the future as well.

"National Taiwan Museum in your Hand" leads the public to view fossil exhibits in a fun and informative way. The public is able to experience interaction with extinct prehistoric creatures and get a glimpse of their appearances. For this project, there are a total of 10 LBS (Location-Based Service) AR stamp collections set outside the museum, 40 AR indoor positioning guides,18 “resurrected” fossil exhibits, and 2 restored Mesozoic scenes. There will be different themes with AR-based experiences in the future. Through the marvelous virtual guides, you can become a master of paleontology! From now on, visitors may use their mobile phones to download the marq+ App and experience the "National Taiwan Museum in your hand " upon entering the Natural History Branch in National Taiwan Museum. For details, please check out the educational activities page https://www.ntm.gov.tw