DinosaurVR: Using Virtual Reality to Enhance a Museum Exhibition

Museums featuring dinosaur fossils have always attracted the attention of the crowd. However, sustaining public interest in science becomes more challenging year after year, even for popular attractions, calling for changes in how exhibits appear in the face of new technologies. To enrich the user’s experience and enhance the exhibition’s attractiveness, we developed and evaluated an immersive and interactive Virtual Reality (VR) experience to inte­ grate the Paleontology exhibition at the Câmara Cascudo Museum in Natal, Brazil. Experienced VR users were interviewed and reported, through software tests, that the system was stable and performed as intended without any noticeable issues that could affect the user experience. They also found the content adequate, except for the sugges­ tion to include more information about Paleoichnology and the finding of fossil tracksites. The graphical quality received mixed reviews, with some participants suggesting improvements to the terrain, such as adding vegetation and enhancing lighting. They also noted that the experience would appeal to younger audiences, thanks to the nov­ elty of VR technology and the accessibility offered by the museum. Improvements were made to the environment based on their feedback, including changes to the terrain and lighting. Additionally, we developed two alternative versions of the experience, one for multi­projection in a room and another without interactive elements. Our results indicate that the VR experience can be successfully integrated with the exhibition and has the potential to enhance museum visits. It can connect the audience with the actual fossils on display by using a dinosaur in the exhibition. It allows one to visualize how their region changed in the past million years. Finally, this experiment helped bridge the population from an unprivileged region with the science that is produced upon the fossils found in their context. Such knowledge broadens the public’s imagination and triggers a whole chain of development for the community around the museum. Our VR exhibition prototype showed great potential to amplify this mission


Introduction
Since the beginning of its popularization, Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing visitor experiences in museums, providing immersive and engag ing environments that extend beyond the limitations of tra ditional exhibits. As technology advances, VR applications offer new opportunities for the cultural heritage sector to cap tivate audiences and convey information innovatively. Previ ous studies have highlighted the potential of technology in museums (Kelly, 2014; Neuburger andEgger, 2017), empha sizing the importance of creating immersive experiences that foster meaningful connections between visitors and exhibits (Lee et al., 2020). However, there remains a need for novel VR applications that push the boundaries of storytelling and visitor engagement. Additionally, as VR is still an expensive technology to use, museums, as places of exhibition, study, and education with ease of access, can help spread the tech nology to a different audience that could not otherwise have access to it (Poulot, 2013).
Moreover, incorporating VR technology into exhibitions is important for museums and visitors. For museums, VR can augment traditional exhibits with immersive and interac tive experiences, enhancing overall visitor engagement and educational impact (Falk and Dierking, 2016). By integrat ing VR into exhibitions, museums can provide visitors with unique opportunities to explore historical, cultural, and sci entific subjects in ways that were previously inaccessible or difficult to comprehend. The addition of VR can breathe new life into museum displays, injecting a sense of wonder and ex citement that attracts and enhances learning in diverse audi ences, including younger generations who are often drawn to cuttingedge technologies (Allcoat and von Mühlenen, 2018). On the other hand, visitors are increasingly seeking more par ticipatory and multisensory experiences when engaging with cultural institutions (Simon, 2010). VR fulfills this desire by enabling visitors to participate actively in the exhibition, im mersing themselves in simulated environments and interact ing with virtual artifacts. Based on those previous studies, it is argued that this integration of VR not only fosters a deeper connection between the visitors and the subject mat ter but also stimulates curiosity, promotes exploration, and facilitates a deeper understanding and appreciation of the mu seum's collections and narratives.
As the Câmara Cascudo Museum, since one of its first permanent exhibitions in 1973, seeks to use immersive tech niques and bring users closer to what is being presented, the opportunity to use this venue is very relevant to such immer sive experiences. In the 1970s, the museum used dioramas to transport the users to different sites relevant to the exhibitions and the audience, such as a cavern, a paleontology site, a fish ing environment, and a mine. Unlike regular dioramas, the ones used in the Câmara Cascudo Museum were not isolated from the public and allowed them to navigate the experiences and interact with them. Now, with VR technologies being the new way to immerse users in different environments, the mu seum has continued to pursue this path by having the Medu soZoa  experience in 2018, the Deynony chus experience in 2019 (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022) and having a virtual museum set up in 2020 (Ramos and Others, 2020).
Recognizing the potential of VR to enhance visitor expe riences in museums and understanding the growing demand for immersive and participatory encounters with cultural her itage, we have developed a novel VR application tailored specifically for an exhibition about Ichnology in the Câmara Cascudo Museum, in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This application represents an extension of our previous work (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022), building upon our expertise and insights gained from developing immersive experiences for that same exhibition in the past. The application aims to transport visitors into a virtual world where they can explore the fusion of futuristic aesthetics and prehistoric creatures, taking the museum experience to new heights. Using the nov elty of VR technologies, our application seeks to provide an immersive experience for museum visitors to explore a small virtual world and have facetoface encounters with a scien tifically accurate dinosaur that lived in Brazil around 125 mil lion years ago. Through this innovative use of VR, especially in the context of the Câmara Cascudo Museum, we strive to push the boundaries of visitor engagement and educational impact in the museum setting. By later integrating our appli cation into the museum, we envision enhancing the overall museum experience by offering visitors a unique opportunity to interact with the virtual world, facing a realsized, properly modeled abelisaur, and developing a deeper connection with the exhibit. Furthermore, by leveraging the benefits of VR technology, including its ability to transcend physical limita tions and engage the senses, our application aims to unlock new dimensions of exploration and understanding, enriching the museum experience for a diverse range of visitors. The application was validated by people with a vast previous ex perience on the use of immersive experiences or VR games, recruited here as specialists. Lastly, by providing an easyto access VR experience in a freeaccess museum, we also aim to introduce VR to a new audience that would not otherwise be able to interact with it.
Paleontology is the study of ancient life through the analy ses of fossils. It is one of the most captivating fields to raise public interest in science, especially concerning dinosaurs. Northeast Brazil presents some of the most productive fos siliferous sites worldwide, with diverse dinosaur skeletal re mains and tracksites. There is a collective effort in science outreach projects to connect scientists with the local com munities where such fossils come from. Previous analyses have demonstrated how much this subject appeals as a cul tural identity for Brazilians and has fostered an increase in public investment in areas of social vulnerability, such as the Cariri and Sousa areas in the outback. It is our interest to use this power as a means of change.
The rest of the paper is divided as follows: the next sub section discusses works related to this one. Section 2 dis cusses the design decisions we made while creating the VR experience. Section 3 details the implementation of the VR experience and the necessary equipment for its installation in the museum. Section 4 summarizes our interviews with a few specialists about the experience. Finally, Section 5 dis cusses the results and changes based on the interviews and concludes the paper with a few ideas for future work.

Related Work
As discussed in our previous work (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022), technology is increasingly becoming part of mu seum exhibitions, as highlighted by (Shehade and Stylianou Lambert, 2020). Another common use of VR technology is to make it possible to visit virtual museums through the in ternet without needing to be physically present (Arts, 2019; Museum, 2016, but that works better for large exhibitions with globally relevant content. For local museums, which have content aimed at the local culture or history, as we aim to achieve with this new VR experience, bringing visitors to the physical facilities is still very important and challeng ing. To enhance physical exhibitions and add a sense of par ticipation for the visitor, museums are being enhanced with augmented virtual information, such as through the use of QRCodes (Silva, 2020; Teixeira et al., 2021. Also, as VR is not an easily accessible technology, bring ing it to the masses using the museum as a mediator is a rele vant opportunity (Carrozzino and Bergamasco, 2010). As the Câmara Cascudo Museum has no admission fee, this was an excellent opportunity to do so. As also discussed in our pre vious work, as proposed by the Museum of Sculpture (Car rozzino et al., 2008), bringing immersive VR technology to the general audience, who is not used to having contact with such technology, can be, by itself, an attractor for a new audi ence. Additionally, the audience's satisfaction rates after the experience seem higher. Aiming to leverage this novelty feel ing for increased amusement, the DinosaurVR experience was created.
Lastly, it is also relevant that integrating VR technology in museums has opened exciting opportunities for showcasing dinosaurs in immersive and educational ways. VR allows vis itors to enter prehistoric worlds, where they can observe di nosaurs in their natural habitats, observe their behavior, and gain insights into their evolutionary history. This novel ap proach enhances the entertainment value of dinosaur exhibi tions and offers educational benefits by engaging visitors in interactive learning experiences.
A few studies have explored the application of VR in the context of dinosaurs in museums, highlighting its potential to create compelling and informative experiences. For instance, a VR application was developed (Lugrin et al., 2018) that al lowed visitors in a large empty room to visit a fully virtual dinosaur museum exhibition that contained a few animals in actual size and relevant information about them. This experi ence was based on a large area tracker and a VR environment that allowed for the presence of multiple users in a single experience. In an approach more related to entertainment, a fully immersive VR experience was also created inside a mu seum (Awadalla, 2023) to allow the overview of a Paleozoic era scenery where the users could fly using a VR device to see different beings of the time.
Furthermore, a VR experience was created (Antlej et al., 2018) based on a real dinosaur excavation site. The environ ment was captured in the real world, and pieces of the excava tion were scanned to create a museum experience in VR that could take the visitors to a real digging site, so they could learn more about the process of finding real dinosaurs.
The use of VR in dinosaur exhibitions has demonstrated its ability to engage visitors and, in some cases, facilitate immersive learning experiences. By leveraging VR's inter active and immersive nature, museums can offer visitors an unparalleled opportunity to explore the world of dinosaurs in previously inaccessible ways. These innovative applica tions spark excitement and curiosity and promote scientific literacy and understanding of paleontology among visitors of all ages. As VR technology advances, there is immense potential for further exploration and refinement of dinosaur experiences in museums, contributing to the evolution of im mersive and educational museum exhibits, especially consid ering regional objects or relevant findings that are part of the region the museum is in.

Design of the VR Experience
After a few months of presentation of our previous work (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022), the space used for the multi projection was occupied with a new section for the Ichnol ogy exhibition. For that reason, our new goal was to develop something that would not rely on a large area but would allow users to encounter a dinosaur and learn a bit more about the subjects in the exhibition. Because of those constraints, we opted for an experience based on fully immersive VR, using VR headsets, as this would allow us to use minimal space in the exhibition while still achieving our goal of enhancing the visitor's experience.
To begin, the VR experience was developed in two ver sions, utilizing the Unity game engine (Unity, 2023) to max imize accessibility for museum visitors. The first version, boasting superior graphical quality and featuring positional tracking, was tailored for the Oculus Quest headset (Meta, 2023). The second version utilized the CardboardVR SDK (Google, 2023) to create an Androidcompatible iteration of the experience. This iteration could be enjoyed by museum goers on their mobile phones, utilizing inexpensive VR card board headsets. Ultimately, the objective of both versions re mained consistent -to offer visitors an immersive VR expe rience that would enhance their exhibition visit while mini mizing any disruption to the physical exhibition space.
For the initial version utilizing the Oculus Quest, the ap plication enabled users to navigate the virtual world by mir roring their movements in the real world. However, this ap proach posed a predicament. Given the confined space within the museum, having individuals physically move within an exhibition while their vision remained obscured by a VR headset proved suboptimal. To address this challenge, we eliminated the option for physical movement within the ex perience. This decision prompted us to explore the second version, which would employ more affordable devices lack ing this functionality. This choice aligned with the evolving requirements and offered the advantage of streamlining visi tor flow through the experience, given the enhanced accessi bility of the new devices. Consequently, the second iteration of the application was developed, targeting VRcapable An droid devices utilizing cardboard VR technology.
Also, after our last experience created for the museum (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022), we partnered with two pa leontologists to discuss how to enhance our experience for this new version. They suggested the experience was cre ated with similar scenery but with less vegetation, as it is not trivial to specify the kind of vegetation that would be around during the time we are seeking to explore in our ex perience (the early Cretaceous Period). Furthermore, as a continuous enhancement for the experience, we agreed with the paleontologists to use a more scientifically accurate di nosaur model that would connect with the regional context of Northeast Brazil (da Costa et al., 2020; Ribeiro et al., 2022). The new model represented a group of dinosaurs (abelisaurid theropods) present in the fossil record from the regional Cre taceous geologic units. Some abelisaurid (and other indeter minate theropod) fossils are displayed at the museum exhibi tion, including body fossils and petrified footprints. The re sulting experience, validated by the paleontologists through out the development process, was considered to have im proved considerably by connecting with the actual fossils on display and allowing visitors to visualize how their regional landscape and wildlife looked over 130 million years ago. A visualization of the new virtual environment with the di nosaur model can be seen in Figure 1.
To enhance the story of the experience and make it a bit more ludic and engaging to the visitor, we placed the user in side a futuristiclooking cage from where he could then gage into the past and see the dinosaurs roaming around. This cage, seen in Figure 2, connects with the idea of having a future where dinosaurs may be recreated back to their original habi tats, as seen in movies and series.
Having designed the virtual environment where the expe rience would take place, the next step was to plan for the content to be shown to the user. Opposed to our previous ex perience (de Carvalho Souza et al., 2022) that used projectors and could have a room filled with people for the same expe rience, using VR headsets creates a problem of throughput for the exhibition. If each visitor uses the device for 2 or 3 minutes, it could take up to two hours for a whole classroom to participate in the experience. This is not very practical, so we tried to tackle this problem in two ways. First, by having the VR experience work on mobile devices, we can scale the number of people simultaneously using the experience by the number of cardboards the museum has available. This is a lot cheaper than getting more VR headsets. The second way we approached the problem was to have a faster experience. Al though not ideal, a shorter experience could lead to a steadier flow of visitors going through the device, allowing visitors to spend more time exploring a bit more after the experience.
Considering those restrictions, the experience was created to last around 45 seconds, with a few more seconds of explo ration following the end of the animation. The visitors also had the option to download the application and take it home with them for extra exploration. It is left to future work to develop an extended version of the experience with more in teraction to be used at home.

Implementation of the VR Experience
The VR experience was developed using the Unity game en gine, which provided a robust platform for creating immer sive virtual environments. Specific VR Software Develop ment Kits (SDKs) were integrated to ensure compatibility with different VR devices. The Oculus SDK was employed for the Oculus version of the experience, while the Cardboard SDK was utilized for the Cardboard version. We used the Unity Terrain editor to construct the virtual landscape, which provides a versatile toolkit for crafting ter rains. Beginning with an empty VR project, we sculpted a lifelike terrain to replicate a natural setting. Our team metic ulously shaped mountains and plains, molding the terrain to mirror the intended topography. A prominent aspect of this landscape was the incorporation of a lake. This addition en hanced the visual appeal of the experience and aligned with the environment's significance, as bodies of water played a crucial role in generating the footsteps integral to the exhi bition. This concept is further elaborated upon in the experi ence's description.
After that, the central piece of the experience was added. An anatomically adequate model of an abelisaur, a dinosaur related to the fossils in the exhibition, was incorporated. The chosen dinosaur model acted as a key character within the virtual world, as it was the goal of the experience. Various animations were implemented to bring the dinosaur to life, allowing for dynamic movements and interactions with the virtual environment. For this experience, we used two di nosaurs, as seen in Figure 3.
At the start of the experience, the users found themselves inside the locked futuristic cage shown in Figure 2. After a few seconds, one of the cage doors opened, revealing the crafted world and the two dinosaurs that would be part of the experience. The first dinosaur, closer to the door, imme diately noticed the participant's presence, loudly shouting to inform its partner. After that, turning to the user, the dinosaur would start smelling them while waiting for its partner to ap proach. The second dinosaur, found drinking water from the lake at the start of the experience, would start moving toward the user after its companion roared. The movement would in crease as the dinosaur accelerated towards the user, also let ting out a wild roar. At this moment, the user could look at the door and use the cursor to keep the doors from closing. This would result in both the animals approaching the observer, meaning they could take a close look at the dinosaurs before the end of the experience. The other option was to stare at the dinos with no actions to let the doors close back. The whole animation, with the simple opportunity for interaction, took part in around 40 seconds, as mentioned before. If the user let the dinosaurs get closer, the experience lasted longer as the dinosaurs approached. After the experience ended, the screen would turn black to indicate that the experience was over and to save battery and processing while changing users on the experience. A brief touch on the screen would then restart the application, with another touch starting the sequence of events.
As for installing the VR equipment, the idea was to use an office chair where the visitor could sit before wearing the cardboard headset. This can be escalated by the number of headsets available by adding additional chairs. Initially, the idea was to have a text inside the VR experience explaining the context and why it was relevant to the user. We decided to use a printed board with the text and instructions instead to speed up placing the headset and participating in the ex perience. This concludes the space necessary in the museum for the installation to work.

Evaluation of the VR Experience
With the experience fully developed, the next step was to val idate the tool with a few users before deploying it to the mu seum. System tests were conducted to evaluate the system's stability, content, and graphics. Five participants with pre vious experience in VR or gaming took part in the tests as specialists in the field to judge the quality of the experience and help develop it further through an interview. All partic ipants took the tests voluntarily and answered the questions after seeing the experience. The participants were aged be tween 31 and 35 years. Four of them identified as males and one as female.
The first question they posed was regarding the system's usability and stability. It stated "Have you noticed any nu ances or instability in the system that could affect the final user experience?". They all reported that the experience was stable enough and that the system works as intended, with no drops in framerate or other nuances that could hinder the fi nal user experience.
The second question was related to the content. As the story and explanation are not yet printed in their final form as of this writing, the text was presented to them digitally so they could understand the context and participate in the expe rience knowing what they would see. The question asked was "Is the content adequate as an extension of a museum exhibi tion, following the guidelines explained in the text?". Four of them answered yes to this question, and one suggested that we go more indepth on details about Ichnology and the foot steps finding. Two of them also indicated that the experience could last a bit longer.
The third question was regarding the graphic quality of the content. The posed question was "Is the graphical content good enough to integrate the exhibition? Are the elements consistent?" For this question, three participants said that the content was good but could be improved, especially in the terrain, and two participants said that the terrain of the experience was "too dark and too dry, inconsistent with the dinosaur". The experience they took part in was shown in Figure 3.
The last question was regarding kids and younger peo ple. We asked the specialists if they "Would consider this a suitable experience for younger people". Four of them said yes, mainly regarding the tool's novelty and the awe factor still present in VR experiences, especially for those that do not have much contact with the technology. The fifth one said that the experience could scare children as the dinosaurs seem to chase the subject and roar at them.
Finally, we let them suggest anything else for the applica tion. Two of them mentioned that we could also develop a version for projectors, even if the room is not available at the moment of this writing, as the last exhibition worked well. One mentioned that we should add vegetation to the expe rience as, even with changes to the terrain, as discussed in the next section, the land still looks too clear. Lastly, two participants mentioned that the water looked cool and the ex perience was interesting, especially to a younger audience.

Discussion and Conclusion
Based on the questions posed to the specialists and our own experience with the system, we concluded that the system was technically validated for deployment in the exhibition. The system works well, can run on the target devices, and has no considerable drops in FPS or stutters that may induce motion sickness in the participants. As it is a seated experi ence, we do not have to worry about physical space limita tions, as the user will be confined to a chair. This is indicated primarily by the answers to the first posed question, which corroborated that the application is technically sound.
The second question was about the content of the experi ence. Four specialists indicated that the experience was good enough, and one asked us to include more about Ichnology and footsteps in the experience. We attributed that to the fact that they had not visited the exhibition before the experience and that, in the final piece, when deployed to the museum, the participants will have a bit more knowledge on the sub ject, as the exhibition itself explains a lot about the discipline and the pieces that are there. Regarding the details about the experience duration, that is something that will need to be tested in the museum itself during the first month or so of the experience. There needs to be a tradeoff between user throughput and experience duration so that an entire class room of students, which is a common group of visitors to the Câmara Cascudo Museum, can participate in the experience in a timely manner. As the experience is highly customizable using the dinosaur models and the environment we proposed, it should be no problem to add a bit more interaction between the dinosaurs or even more species or specimens, but, as said before, that will need to be tested in the museum. Acquiring more headsets may also be a solution, but, as of now, it is not viable.
The third question, regarding the graphical setting of the experience, was the one where specialists were more criti cal. Although the model of the dinosaur was considered good enough by all of them, the environment was considered bad, and changes to it were requested. Using realtime feedback from two specialists, we changed the environment, as seen in Figure 4. We added vegetation to the terrain, as asked by one of the specialists, and added a bit more grassy spots to the terrain to remove the "darkness and dryness" reported by another specialist and also changed the lighting of the system a bit so the faces of the mountains that are facing the player are the ones being light up by the sun. These changes made the experience lighter and, as described by one of the spe cialists later, "more interesting and attractive for a younger audience".
After showing the new version to the paleontologists, the grass was removed from the scene as it is not accurate to the period depicted in the simulation. To still keep the lightness of the terrain while maintaining the accuracy of the imagery, we opted to use a plant common to that time instead. As the experience is confined to a single space, we added a lot of those new plants to shorten the environment a bit and en hance the focus on the dinosaurs. The final version of the application can be seen in Figure 5.
Regarding the fourth question, which asks about our main target audience -younger people and children -the spe cialists agree that the application is attractive and suitable, mainly due to the awe factor the VR still brings and the ac cessibility the museum brings to audiences that are not used to having access to VR equipment. The concern of one of the specialists about the scare of being chased by a dinosaur is also valid and something that will be brought up to the volun teers of the museum that are accompanying the experience. They should warn the parents about the content and be ready to remove the headset if any user shows any signs of distress. Based on that feedback, we also prepared a secondary expe rience that features no interaction with the dinosaurs or be tween them, instead turning the experience into just a simple visualization of two dinosaurs minding their own business. This experience will also be made available to the museum as a backup if they want to use it.
Lastly, following the extra comments from the specialists, we also created a different version of the experience that can run on the projectors setup that was used for our pre vious installation in the Câmara Cascudo Museum (de Car valho Souza et al., 2022). This version has the exact same experience as the one in the headsets but can be projected into a room using four projectors, showing a wide vision of the space the dinosaurs are in. For this version, as we did in the last exhibition, we also added dinosaurs posing at the end of the experience to allow visitors to take pictures with the dinosaurs projected on the screen. The other comments were addressed in the improvements made for the other questions, concluding the development of our VR experience. This paper presented the development of a VR experience for an exhibition in the Câmara Cascudo Museum, in Natal, RN, Brazil. The experience was created to integrate the ex hibition about Ichnology in the museum without affecting its current area or having to remodel any of its rooms. For that, the installation used a VR headset and was made for a seated VR experience. In the end, following improvements suggested by specialists that interacted with the software, two other versions of the same experience were also made available, one for a projected room and another one without interactions. The experience consisted of a short moment of interaction between the user and two virtual dinosaurs that are modeled to adequate precision and are put into the vir tual world with correct proportions so that the users can feel their real size.
Because of time constraints and the low availability of VR headsets, the experience was created to be short. In future work, we plan to extend the capabilities of the application and then make it available to be used in different environments from the museum itself. We also plan on using this model and scenery for different applications that can be also inte grated into the context of museum exhibitions, even in other museums of the region, as abelisaurs were the most common predatory dinosaurs in Brazil. This is not only an important feature for a decolonial experience but also relevant to the museums, as the dinosaurs portrayed in virtual experiences and movies are usually the ones mainly found in the Global North. It is uncommon to find experiences such as the game Dino Hazard: Chronos Blackout (Collectors, 2020), which highlights lesserknown dinosaurs from less publicized re gions. Experiences like this should be encouraged to connect populations from unprivileged regions with the science that is produced upon the resources found in their own territo ries. Such knowledge broadens the imagination of the public and triggers a whole chain of development for the commu nity around the museum, and our VR exhibition prototype showed great potential to amplify this mission. on museums: the ecomuseu virtual guide. In Symposium on Virtual and Augmented Reality, pages 147-156. Unity (2023). Unity. Software.