Special Issue on VR for Culture and Heritage: The Experience of Cultural Heritage with Virtual Reality (Part II): Guest Editors’ Introduction

The guest editors’ introduction in the first part of this special issue (Presence 26-3) highlighted the transmutability of human culture. It also highlighted the apparent perpetuity of material culture, which will eventually decline and diminish either through time or through anthropogenic hazards and unfortunate environmental disasters. The introduction continued by emphasizing the need for the research community to progress beyond digital records by investigating, through research and applications, the utility of virtual access through virtual reality. Part I, therefore, focused on the observed shift of the use of 3D technology for documenting or reconstructing heritage sites and monuments toward the experience of past culture and heritage through immersive virtual environments. The previous volume gathered five thematic papers focusing on the virtual-reality experience of cultural heritage. Here in the second part, we continue the special issue with new methods and developments for substantiating concepts with further applications of virtual environments for cultural heritage. 2. The Scope of this Special Issue