Livia´s Villa Reloaded: An example of re-use and update of a pre-existing Virtual Museum, following a novel approach in storytelling inside virtual reality environments

Livia´s Villa Reloaded is an innovative virtual reality installation dedicated to the Villa Ad Gallinas Albas, which Livia Drusilla took as dowry to the Emperor Augustus when she married him in the first century BC. This archaeological site is located on a great hill at Prima Porta, at the ninth mile of the via Flaminia, a very important Roman consular road built at the end of the third century BC to connect Rome to Ariminum (today Rimini). Starting from digital acquisition on the field, both the archaeological landscape and the actual site have been modeled in 3D, together with the reconstruction of how this context could have been in the past, in particular during the augustan age. The 3D scenarios have been implemented in a Virtual Reality application using mid-air gesture based Interaction. The installation introduces a novel approach in storytelling, combining different media and languages: real time exploration, cinematographic paradigms, use of real actors and virtual set practices. This installation has been created reusing and updating the dataset previously realized for the Virtual Museum of the Ancient via Flaminia, a virtual reality and multiuser environment that was installed in the Roman National Museum-Diocletian´s Baths in Rome in 2008. The new version of installation, Livia´s Villa Reloaded, has been presented and opened to the public in February 2014 in the same location, and promoted by the V-Must network as a successful example of trans-media project.