Visualizing Hypotheses: Perception of Reconstructed Heritage Buildings in Virtual Reality

Abstract

Because ancient artifacts and buildings are often known only through partial remains, contextual evidence, and the current state of archaeological knowledge, their restitution may involve multiple interpretations and reconstruction hypotheses. However, in most mediation contexts, only one reconstruction is presented to the public, who may then perceive it as a definitive representation of the past. To address this issue, we investigate visual metaphors for communicating levels of hypothesis within a virtual reconstruction. We designed a virtual reality user study based on a Roman temple, in order to evaluate the effect of visual cues associated with different levels of hypothesis. We compared two rendering-based metaphors, transparency and point clouds, each parameterized to represent several degrees of hypothesis across the reconstructed scene. By analyzing users’ behavior during exploration and question-based observation of the site—including head movements, eye-tracking data, and post-task questionnaires—we compare the two effects and examine how they influence the perception and interpretation of hypothesis levels in immersive heritage visualization.