Animating Mobile Artefacts

Animating Museum Artefacts in VR/AR/XR for contextualization and experiencing the original character of formerly moveable exhibits.

Concepts for the use of hybrid exhibitions in the context of historical performative artefacts

ESF Plus InnoTeam "Mobile Artefakte", SAB-No.: 100690214
Project period: 01.01.2024-31.12.2026

TU Dresden IXLAB, GTV – Gesellschaft für Technische Visualistik mbH, cura3D GmbH und Co KG and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden are launching a joint project to revive originally mobile artefacts with AR, VR and XR technologies. GTV is a renowned company that specialises in helping other companies to understand and visualise their data. cura3D is an innovative company based in Leipzig that specialises in developing cutting-edge 3D/VR planning software and tools for museums and galleries. IXLAB is a research group at the Junior Professorship of Immersive Media Design at the Faculty of Computer Science at TU Dresden, focussing on the research and development of innovative solutions in the field of immersive media. The Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden comprises an outstanding large number of renowned museums and collections.

The aim is to develop suitable processes and methods to enable museums to convey former movable and historically valuable exhibits, which can no longer or only rarely be shown in motion, in the best possible way through interactive-immersive presentations. AR, VR and XR are to serve as basic technologies in order to bring the original character of the formerly moving exhibits to life with innovative technical approaches. This ranges from the immersive extension of the classic exhibition visit to animated augmented reality presentations in the children's room. The project is divided into three areas: Digitisation, Presentation & Interaction. The partners are working closely together within these processes and are also working on their own research specialisms. In addition, the full potential of the museum utilisation chain will be explored & subsequently realised commercially. The project promises significant progress in the digital transfer of knowledge & serves to preserve cultural heritage.

To project website

Selected Publications

Fabian Töpfer, Eliane Christ, Zhongyuan Yu, Lars Engeln, Ingmar S. Franke, Matthew McGinity (2025)
Moving Experiences – Towards a Conceptual Framework for Performative Artefacts in Museums.
Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Culture and Computer Science: from Humanism to Digital Humanities (KUI '24), ACM, Article 12, 1–10.
DOI: 10.1145/3719236.3719249

Fabian Töpfer, Eliane Christ, Zhongyuan Yu, Lars Engeln, Matthew McGinity (2025)
Material Studies For Digital Heritage: Comparative Analysis of Geometric and Photometric 3D Representations.
Digital Heritage, eds. Stefano Campana, Daniele Ferdani, Holger Graf, Gabriele Guidi, Zackary Hegarty, Sofia Pescarin, Fabio Remondino. Eurographics Association. ISBN: 978-3-03868-277-6
DOI: 10.2312/dh.20253050

Zhongyuan Yu, Fabian Töpfer, Eliane Christ, Matthew McGinity (2025)
Toward an All-in-One Platform for Mixed Reality Exhibitions.
KUI 2025 – XXII. International Conference on Culture and Computer Science, Berlin, Germany. Pages: to appear.