From the Forbidden City to Dunhuang Caves to the Great Wall of China, Tencent has supported a number of important sites listed under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention to digitize and preserve priceless cultural assets. As a result, more visitors can experience these wonders of the world through online virtual tours. The added benefit of high-resolution 3D images of historical relics allows exhibition visitors to study intricate patterns and designs more clearly than in real life.
For those interested in culture, more good news is on the way. Leveraging Tencent Video’s Interactive Mixed Reality (MR) technology, our MR tourism solution will make it more affordable for museums, cultural monuments and natural attractions to create their own compelling MR experiences. Bring human interaction into the mix – whether real or digital – the new software development heralds a new era of possibilities in content creation and cultural tourism.
More for less – flexible and efficient
Until recently, providing a quality virtual tourism experience meant spending inordinately long hours on site to perform proper image capture. It requires professional workers to achieve satisfactory results, resulting in high costs. Tencent’s cloud-enabled MR cultural tourism solution significantly reduces the cost of producing immersive MR experiences compared to traditional on-site filming methods.
Six key features of the new MR solution:
1. Fixed camera position video footage, virtually mirrored with real-time rendering for seamless images.
2. Portable QR code green screen mat for realistic and large-scale landscape reconstruction.
3. The solution recognizes movement and gestures, restores the relationship between light and shadow, and supports natural interaction with virtual backgrounds and objects.
4. 360 degree panoramic backgrounds, then AI merges people with virtual scenes.
5. AI matting technology creates scenes with real people and virtual backgrounds without the need for a green screen.
6. People from different places can be rendered in virtual scenes and interact with each other.
Four applications of Tencent’s MR technology
Tencent’s MR technology can revolutionize the production of traditional and virtual reality videos, as well as create immersive live virtual spaces. Using cutting-edge technologies such as 3D engines, cloud rendering, image style tracking, and virtual reality interaction, you can seamlessly integrate people into virtual scenes to enhance video viewing experiences and streamline their production. Our proprietary algorithm drastically reduces deployment costs and the complexity of setting up live broadcasts, enabling high-quality, cost-effective production for both companies and individuals.
1. Explore tourist attractions with your digital avatar
Whether it’s a country park or historic landmark, visitors can explore offline attractions at their own pace, with a digital avatar acting as a tour guide. Motion capture software allows visitors to create their own travel guide.
To activate the digital human guide, visitors simply scan a QR code at key locations around the attractions. They can then interact with it on a digital screen like a human tour guide, asking questions, seeking information and getting directions.
2. Travel anytime via live stream
Scenic landmarks and historical sites are recorded 24/7 and streamed live over the cloud in an uninterrupted stream. A virtual tour guide provides online visitors with comments at any time. This feature can be used as a creative marketing tactic to promote the attraction and encourage people to visit the site in person.
3. Immersive experience with cultural sites and relics
Tourists can integrate into the virtual world and interact with cultural monuments and virtual people via camera or smartphone. Using MR technology, AI and advanced background matting solutions, anything from a large scale scene to an intricate work of art can be recreated without green screens. Visitors can view the cultural relics up close and examine them in detail, breathing new life into valuable or fragile artifacts that would otherwise be at risk of harm.
4. Host a show with a combination of real and digital people
Overcome space and resource limitations and host a launch event or celebration with digital avatars sharing the stage with a physical avatar. Tencent’s MR technology allows you to create different backgrounds, whether it’s a TV studio, a conference hall, or an outdoor stadium. Real presenters can then take the stage and perform with their virtual avatar counterparts.
A world of possibilities
Such simple but professional technologies open up a world of marketing opportunities for smaller museums and tourist facilities. From pre-visit previews to integrated virtual and real navigation, exhibitions of artworks and restoration of cultural monuments and historical sites, the virtual world is increasingly merging with real life in innovative ways.
