Design of a VR Environment Optimized for Cultural Heritage Sites and Objects: The Use Case of Its Kale, Ioannina, Greece.

We report on the processes and techniques used to create 3D objects and characters, their composition into scenes and the development of an interactive VR application optimized for cultural heritage sites and objects. To this end, technologies and methods are presented to achieve these objectives and some key decisions for the smoothest possible functionality of the produced applications are analyzed. The process of conversion of characters, objects, and platforms to integrate seamlessly in the context of specific historical eras with distinct cultural heritage characteristics is discussed in detail. A user study is presented, where the final VR platform is evaluated by a group of users via the System Usability Scale (SUS) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The VR platform is deployed on three devices: HTC VIVE Cosmos Elite, HTC VIVE Focus 3 and Oculus Quest 2.