Taking into account the issues outlined in the previous
section, and since the digitisation of a sufficient number
of the participating museum exhibits had already taken
place, it was considered a good opportunity to investigate
the feasibility of implementing a virtual reality
museum with the use of 3D game technologies. Such an
alternative would allow users to view and navigate in a
virtual world, even in the location of their home, without
noticeable compromise in the overall quality. Furthermore,
the interaction style of game applications in nongame
domains can be compelling, as suggested by Tsang
et al. (2003). This solution to the need for affordable
virtual reality is offered by the game software industry,
which, during the past few years, has followed hardware
evolution, and from simple sprite graphics (i.e. a small
rectangle of pixels depicting a virtual character, usually
in games) has come to offer colourful, crisp and life-like
3D graphics. Game technology has managed to develop
systems that, on the one hand, exploit computers’ potential
to the maximum and, on the other, offer the user
a sophisticated, interactive environment with 3D
graphics and, in some cases, immersion capabilities that
can be enjoyed, even a moderate home computer. As
Lewis and Jacobson (2002) point out: