Institut National des Sciences Appliqu�es' logo Logo of Rennes' museum of Fine Arts

Hieroglyph of Bastet

Step into the shoes of an archaeologist to learn more about an egyptian cat mummy !

Mummy envelope

Hover your mouse over the mummy !

Find out more

About

As part of a fourth year project, we - seven INSA Rennes students -, are making a virtual reality application in collaboration with the Fine Arts' museum of Rennes.

By exploring the methods and tools that make it possible to acquire knowledge the visitor, immersed in an immersive and interactive experience, gradually discovers just as during a scientific investigation, the secret of the Egyptian cat mummy.

Through different sequences, the user gather informations by testing different research protocols, such as computed tomography (medical imaging technique) and learn how to analyse the obtained results.

The experiment

The user interacts with the image displayed on the screen using the movement of his hands, thanks to a Leap Motion. Using integrated cameras, this motion capture device analyse and replicate their movement and immerses them in a virtual space. The visual result of the application is displayed on a TV screen.

During the experiment, divided into several sequences, the user undertakes different actions such as handling the mummy, using a button or a cursor.


There, the visitor is able to learn how to gently grab the mummy in order to observe it from all angles.


The result of the computerized tomography scan (the density of the materials is shown with a gray scale) is displayed to the user, which can act on the result in order to display only certain materials of the mummy.

Demonstration

Collaborators

For the development of the application, we are seven computer science students from INSA Rennes: Juliette Bonnard, Pablo Cancoin, Rémi Daniel, Thomas Morice, Jean-François Ory, Gwenn Rouet and Yangyixuan Zhou.

To help us in this development we are working under the supervision of two professors of the INSA Rennes' IT department, Ms. Valérie Gouranton and Mr. Bruno Arnaldi, also researchers at IRISA Rennes.

We also get help from the cultural mediator of the Rennes museum, Ms. Odile Hays, as well as from the archaeologist Mr. Théophane Nicolas.