Subdivision of 2D polygons is the basis of many computational geometry algorithms and procedural modeling methods. Existing tools for space subdivision often require the assistance of users and cannot perform subdivision on all types of shapes (rectangular, axis-aligned, convex, and irregular). In this work, an open-source graphical desktop tool for drawing and automatic subdivision of arbitrary 2D polygons is introduced. An algorithm for subdivision of all shape types was developed. The algorithm is based on the usage of polygon bounding boxes, intersection edges and detection of polygons from newly formed edges. A dataset of 60 examples of all shape types was collected and successfully drawn by using the tool. Iterative subdivision was performed on all examples. Shape simplification was fully successful only for axis-aligned shapes. Partial simplification with leftover elements taking up less than 5% of overall polygon area was successful after 5 iterations for axis-aligned, and 10 iterations for convex and irregular shapes on average. This indicates that the tool and subdivision algorithm can be used for simplification of complex shape types with arbitrarily small leftover element area.

As virtual worlds continue to rise in popularity, so do the expectations of users for the content of virtual scenes. Virtual worlds must be large in scope and offer enough freedom of movement to keep the audience occupied at all times. For content creators, it is difficult to keep up by manually producing the surrounding content. Therefore, the application of procedural modelling techniques is required. Virtual worlds often mimic the real world, which is composed of organized and connected outdoor and indoor layouts. It is expected that all content is present on the virtual scene and that a user can navigate streets, enter buildings, and interact with furniture within a single virtual world. While there are many procedural methods for generating different layout types, they mostly focus only on one layout type, whereas complete scene generation is greatly underrepresented. This paper aims to identify the coverage of layout types by different methods because similar issues exist for the generation of content of different layout types. When creating a new method for layout generation, it is important to know if the results of existing methods can be appended to other methods. This paper presents a survey of existing procedural modelling methods, which were organized into five categories based on the core approach: pure subdivision, grammar‐based, data‐driven, optimization, and simulation. Information about the covered layout types, the possibility of user interaction during the generation process, and the input and output shape types of the generated content is provided for each surveyed method. The input and output shape types of the generated content can be useful to identify which methods can continue the generation by using the output of other methods as their input. It was concluded that all surveyed methods work for only a few different layout types simultaneously. Moreover, only 35% of the surveyed methods offer interaction with the user after completing the initial process of space generation. Most existing approaches do not perform transformations of shape types. A significant number of methods use the irregular shape type as input and generate the same shape type as the output, which is sufficient for coverage of all layout types when generating a complete virtual world.

Abstract This article examines the user experience and cognitive workload in digital storytelling through immersive virtual reality (VR). Specifically, it explores the relationship between various aspects of the user experience and their link to the cognitive workload. The investigation was conducted by means of a large-scale evaluation of an underwater archaeological VR experience that simulated diving into the reconstructions of a submerged ancient site combined with interactive 360° video storytelling. The evaluation included 125 participants from two different geographical locations. Results revealed a strong interdependence between all user experience scales, including presence, immersion, engagement, emotional response, state of flow, subjective judgment, and technological adoption of the VR equipment. Moreover, the sense of presence in VR was strongly related to the reported task performance. The article highlights the importance of understanding the user experience and cognitive workload when creating digital storytelling applications in immersive VR.

War or Dark Heritage is challenging for digital presentation as it involves tragic events and the loss of human lives. Due to the same considerations, the importance of commemorating such a heritage is paramount. Virtual Reality offers tremendous possibilities for immersive experiences of war heritage. In the use case of the Battle on Kozara VR application, we will show how a combination of Interactive Digital Storytelling and gameplays can result in an educational and attractive immersive presentation of a battle from WWII, very important for the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. User experience evaluation of museum visitors will show if we have obtained the right balance between heavy and tragic historical facts and challenging tasks for users to introduce them to the lives of Battle participants and enable them to relive the Battle themselves.

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) is a way of communicating information in the metaverse [BH22]. Gameplay elements added to these applications turn them into serious games that can offer unique immersive experiences of historical objects and events to museum visitors and online. In this paper, we describe this "Advanced IDS" methodology on a use case of the Trebinje Fortresses VR project. Austrian Hungarian Fortresses around Trebinje, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, are in decay, hardly accessible, and completely neglected. They can be explored in Virtual Reality through an application that combines Interactive Digital Storytelling narrated by officers who used to inhabit them with gameplays where the user becomes a carrier pigeon and carries the messages from one fortress to another while avoiding eagle attacks. After the first mission is successfully completed the user gets a task to accomplish in a fortress underground, and, if successful, gets the opportunity to explore digitized museum exhibits found in the fortress. The application is installed in the Trebinje Museum. The quality of user experience will be proven through an evaluation study.

Archaeological sites from prehistory are very important for understanding humanity. However, they are very difficult to understand for common visitors. We see traces of excavations and fragments of archaeological findings, but we do not grasp their meaning. Interactive digital storytelling has potential to present the significance of these sites and make them attractive and educational at the same time. We will show this through the case study of Crvena stijena in Montenegro, presented in a Virtual Reality application. Through interactive stories, gameplay and digital replicas of archaeological findings the users obtain better perception of the physical site and are attracted to visit the museum.

A rapid increase in development and use of Extended Reality applications for all areas of life is expected in metaverse age. Many museums are in the last decade introducing digital content in their exhibitions. They hired digital curators to establish connection with developers and IT industry. Extended Reality technologies enable museum visitors to experience the topics of exhibitions, see original appearances of exhibits and travel to the past through Virtual Reality headsets or Augmented Reality applications on mobile devices. In this paper we show an example of good practice, describing the application Battle on Neretva VR installed in the Museum in Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. We present the application design and development workflow and show the impressions of museum management and visitors after introducing it in the exhibition. This workflow can be replicated to any museum topic or collection.

Digital technologies in the modern era are almost mandatory for the presentation of all types of cultural heritage. Virtual depictions of crafts and traditions offer the users the possibility of time travel, taking them to the past through the use of 3D reconstructions of cultural monuments and sites. However, digital resources alone are not enough to adequately present cultural heritage. Additional information on the historical context in the form of stories, virtual reconstructions, and digitized objects is needed. All of this can be implemented using a digital multimedia presentation technique called digital storytelling. Nowadays, an integral part of many museum exhibitions is interactive digital storytelling. This paper gives an overview of the techniques and discusses different means of facilitating interaction on digital storytelling applications for virtual cultural heritage presentations. We describe the ways in which natural interaction and interaction via eXtended Reality (Virtual and Augmented Reality) applications for cultural heritage are made possible. Users will find the stories told through these applications educational and entertaining at the same time. Through user-experience studies, we measure the user edutainment level and present how users react to implemented interactions.

Virtual Reality is a technology of choice for time traveling. VR applications enhance museum collections and cultural heritage sites with exciting opportunity to experience the life in the past. Da Vinci Effect (DVE) is a multiplayer VR game for teenagers aiming to introduce them with works of Leonardo da Vinci and his paramount role in history of mankind. In this paper we present the process of application design and development, as well as the users’ impressions showing how powerful Virtual Reality is in edutainment of young generations. We describe the novel approach which utilizes the “inside-out” tracking capabilities of the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 mobile VR headsets.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) has a very picturesque past. Founded in 11th century, it has always been a crossroads of faiths and civilizations. Extended Reality (XR) technologies can finally take us to time travel into this history, enable us to experience past events and meet historical characters. In this paper, we overview the latest applications we developed that use Virtual Reality (VR) video, Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR) for interactive digital storytelling about BH history. “Nine dissidents” is the first BH VR documentary, tackling a still tricky subject of dissidents in the Socialist Yugoslavia, artists and writers falsely accused, persecuted and still forbidden. “Virtual Museum of Old Crafts” aims to present and preserve crafts intangible heritage through Virtual Reality. “Battle on Neretva VR” is recreating a famous WWII battle offering the users to experience it and meet comrade Tito, the commander of the Yugoslav Liberation Army. “Sarajevo 5D” shows the cultural monuments from Sarajevo that do not exist anymore in physical form using Augmented Reality. Through user experience studies, we measure the user immersion and edutainment of these applications and show the potential of XR for the presentation and preservation of cultural heritage.

Virtual Reality enables the users to experience cultural heritage. Time travel through past times is transferring us in virtual environments with 3D reconstructions of cultural monuments inhabited by historical characters. The full immersion in this different reality can be achieved only with proper spatialization of sound. In this paper we discuss the related work in 3D sound implementation for digital cultural heritage applications and compare it with our experiences

This paper presents a combined subjective and objective evaluation of an application mixing interactive virtual reality (VR) experience with 360° storytelling. The hypothesis that the modern immersive archaeological VR application presenting cultural heritage from a submerged site would sustain high levels of presence, immersion, and general engagement was leveraged in the investigation of the user experience with both the subjective (questionnaires) and the objective (neurophysiological recording of the brain signals using electroencephalography (EEG)) evaluation methods. Participants rated the VR experience positively in the questionnaire scales for presence, immersion, and subjective judgement. High positive rating concerned also the psychological states linked to the experience (engagement, emotions, and the state of flow), and the experience was mostly free from difficulties linked to the accustomization to the VR technology (technology adoption to the head-mounted display and controllers, VR sickness). EEG results are in line with past studies examining brain responses to virtual experiences, while new results in the beta band suggest that EEG is a viable tool for future studies of presence and immersion in VR.

This paper explores the new way of presenting one existing VR application, which was described in our previous work - Virtual Reality Experience of Sarajevo War Heritage. The goal of the application was to introduce more people with the Sarajevo siege and allow them to experience the Tunnel crossing at that time. Before this application, we made two versions, the first one for VR setup and the second for the web. In this paper, we introduce a mobile version with the same content. The challenge was to optimize the content for the mobile experience. The assets were optimized so a wider number of mobile phones with different hardware capabilities can run the application. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach are pointed out, and the limitations of the mobile application are emphasized. The memory usage and frame rate are measured for different Android devices with different operating system versions and hardware capabilities. The results show the optimized application can be run on different Android mobile devices. Nevertheless, for better user experience a higher number of frames per second is needed, which may include reducing the quality of the assets.