The virtual cave experience is a virtual tour inside a cave instantiated by the 3D models of the Scladina Cave. It supports two modes, namely the screen mode without any stereoscopic effects and Oculus Rift mode with the stereoscopic headset involved. The overall hardware requirements were set to 8GB of memory, and for using Oculus Rift, a 970M Nvidia GPU is needed.
In the final version of the Scladina Cave VR experience, we have inserted a better version of the 3D model of the Cave which was reconstructed with high quality and with high number of images using proper lighting. Also, we made renewals in the Graphic User Interface as regards the Points of Interest (PoIs) in order to be more informative and easily handled with Oculus Rift. In addition, we have created and inserted 3D animations and videos for narrations for the excavation of Scladina site, according to accurate archaeological records. We also designed and developed 3D animations for the avatars of scientists that assist users in understanding the history of the cave. A great amount of spots where fauna or lithic artifacts were found, namely 2000, are shown inside the virtual cave. The use of sounds and audio maximize the immersion of the player. Some images from the virtual experience are shown in the Figures below.
(a) 
(b) 
(c) 
(d)
Scladina Cave virtual experience, second round of improvements: (a) found lithic items; (b) narration by the 3D animation of a virtual archaeologist; (c) PoIs with image, text, and videos; (d) explanation of the excavation process through an animation.
Download and play the Virtual Cave Experience
- 1.3GB zip file
- 5 GB of free space
- 8 GB of RAM, (16 GB is recommended)
- Windows 10
- GPU requirements: 970M NVidia or better
- Oculus Rift glasses
v5 (10 January 2019): https://digiart.mklab.iti.gr/experiences/Scladina_VR_5_0.zip