“Shared Miletus” is a cultural heritage demonstration which takes visitors on a shared virtual voyage through the ancient Greek city of Miletus as it existed 2000 years ago.

The Foundation for the Hellenic World has modeled the city of Miletus for display on the ImmersaDesk and ReaCTOR virtual reality system at their museum. The existing application allows visitors to fly through the city and see it as it existed in antiquity. The application is being extended to also demonstrate possibilities for networking of virtual museum environments.

The most basic feature will be the sharing of the environment - people at distant sites in the same virtual environment; these people could all be visitors, or one or more could be experts serving as guides for the others. Beyond this, it is planned to add pre-recorded guides which are stored at one site and can be called upon by any visitors to lead them through the city and explain it, rather than requiring a human guide at all times. The guides will also be able to support multiple languages and levels of expertise for the visitors. Current language support is planned for English and Greek.

“Shared Miletus” premiered at the iGrid 2000 exhibit, INET ’2000 held in Yokahama, Japan.

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