Historical buildings are damaged or become unusable in time or due to reasons such as earthquake, war, fire, which have much more destructive effects. Restoration works recycle these buildings; however, this process is both difficult and requires expertise. Therefore, students receive training on planning and carrying out restoration works in the architecture departments of higher education institutions. It has become a necessity to provide these trainings via distance education due to obstacles to formal education such as epidemics in the current and upcoming period. However, since these trainings are mostly requiring practice, it is quite difficult to provide this training with the conventional training methods in the distance education. Because lecturers and students should examine the buildings to be restored together and make on-site measurements and analyzes for the restoration work to be done. The fact that these works cannot be carried out on the building causes students to not receive a good education on restoration courses. In this project, therefore, VR applications will be developed to be used as an educational tool in the applied courses of architecture, especially in the field of restoration. This project will be a new approach in architectural restoration education. The developed VR content will have almost the same appearance as the real buildings. With the help of this software, the lecturers and students who wear the VR headset in restoration lessons will have the opportunity to interact with a historical building in a virtual class. They will be able to discuss the details of a new restoration procedures that have been made or can be done in this environment (Appendices: Picture 1). Thanks to this VR applications, the lecturers and students will be in the same virtual environment even if they are in different physical environments. In this context, we will design 3D models of targeted historical buildings and transfer these models to game engines and interactively visualize there. Then, we will implement various interaction techniques to these models by coding to provide interactive VR applications. We also develop an AI model which recognize the user gesture automatically in VR applications. The administrative staffs, academicians, students, and researchers in the fields of architecture and informatics from UNIKA, SU and UNILE will participate the project activities. The main purpose of the project is: To develop interactive VR applications that realistically visualizes historical buildings for restoration education in 3D and to train human resources who can develop these applications. Project Activities: • Development of VR Application of Historical Buildings: After collection of a detailed data about the historical building VR applications will be developed by project participant from each project partner. • Preparation of User Guide: Project partners will prepare a user guide which, explains how to use these VR applications in the lessons, by sharing experience and knowledge by the partners. • Preparation of Video Tutorials: The partners, together, will prepare a video tutorial series to teach the VR application development steps in detail to target groups. The trainees, who watch these tutorials, will be able to develop VR applications of different historical buildings and ensure that these applications become widespread. • Development of the curriculum: A curriculum called "VR Application Development for Buildings" for computer science departments will be developed to raise the human resources to develop these applications. • Dissemination activities such as multiplier events, pilot trainings, seminars will be held for target groups as well. The education quality of higher education institutions using the project outputs will increase and they will provide students with a more practical education. The long-term benefits of the project are: • VR based education model will be widespread in other fields of higher education institution. • VR application archive will be created that will assist in the restoration process of historical buildings in a more economical and more original way. • An important VR application archive will be created that will assist in the restoration process of historical buildings in a more economical and more original way. • Human resources that can develop these applications will be trained and a new employment area will be created in the field of informatics. • VR application can be used for promotion of historical buildings.
Our first objective in implementing the project was to develop a remote interactive Virtual Reality (VR) application that architecture students can use in restoration education. These applications would visualize historical buildings in a realistic way and would enable students to do the applications they do in formal courses in an interactive and collaborative environment. Our second objective was to get the human resources in the IT sector interested in these applications and to train them to develop these applications.
This project addressed two fundemental needs. Historic buildings often suffer significant damage or become unusable over time due to factors such as earthquakes, wars and fires. The need to restore these buildings is vital to the preservation of our cultural heritage. However, restoration work requires specialised knowledge and expertise, which can be acquired through extensive training. The current obstacles to formal education, such as epidemics, have made it necessary to explore alternative methods such as distance learning. In cases where architectural students do not have access to formal education in restoration courses, they need an online digital educational tool. The first issue this project addresses: Architecture students need an online digital education tool that visualises historical buildings, a visually realistic, interactive and collaborative working environment in cases where they cannot access formal education in restoration courses. In addition to this, the fact that the human resources that can develop these applications are very limited is the second reason that led us to do this project.