How Space is Told: Linking Trajectory, Narrative, and Intent in Augmented Reality Storytelling for Cultural Heritage Sites

Original link: http://vis.pku.edu.cn/blog/how-space-is-told/

Using augmented reality (AR) to guide tourists to visit cultural sites and narrate the stories behind them is an effective way of sightseeing tour (Figure 1), which can improve the participation of tourists while providing route navigation function, And strengthen tourists’ images of scenic spots. However, in the current research related to augmented reality location storytelling, researchers often focus on improving the user experience of tourists, but do not pay enough attention to story creators, which leads to the creation of augmented reality location storytelling tools. Insufficient development is not conducive to its development as a new medium of creative expression. In the research of Jae-eun Shin et al. [1] from KAUST in South Korea, a user survey was conducted on the creation process of augmented reality location storytelling, revealing the relationship between the creator’s intention, the spatial organization of the tour track, and the structure of the narrative content.

Figure 1: Using Augmented Reality to Guide Tourists through Cultural Sites for Storytelling

In the paper, the author designed the research and analysis process based on relevant literature, considering authorship, spatiality and narrativity, and first defined spacetelling from the dimensions of geographic space and narrative content concept, and then developed a prototype of the spatial narrative creation system, and recruited 22 users to use the system to create spatial narrative stories. Finally, the author analyzed the phenomena observed in the experiment and user interviews based on Grounded theory In summary, the pattern of spatial narrative is analyzed from the aspects of creative intention, spatial organization, and narrative structure.

In terms of creativity, from the creation of traditional story works to the creation of contemporary interactive digital story content, it is changing from a single author mode to audience-as-user, and audiences no longer just passively accept stories , the audience, as users of interactive works, can control factors such as the narration rhythm through interaction, thus having more initiative. In augmented reality location storytelling, this shift is enhanced, the viewer needs to organize the experience of the real story by walking between the locations, with a stronger initiative, which becomes to some extent the experience of the person. The author of the story (Audience-as-author). In this environment, it is natural and reasonable for most studies to pay more attention to the user experience of the audience, but the real author behind the storytelling also needs enough attention.

In terms of space, although early human-computer interaction scholars have noticed that space is a familiar concept in people’s daily life, and its rational organization and utilization can improve users’ understanding of computer media and digital storytelling. But when augmented reality appeared, the spatiality of computer media changed from a metaphorical concept to a feature that can be truly combined with real world space. The location storytelling of augmented reality made full use of spatiality to organize computer media.

As for the narrative related to space, the author introduces the concept of placeness, that is, the inherent semantic characteristics of a place. It also introduces Azuma’s three ways to enhance spatial narrative, including Reinforcing, Remembering and Reskinning. Reinforcement refers to the use of additional information to enhance an already significant place, recall refers to the use of events or memories to enhance the semantics of a place in a more personal context, and reshape refers to the addition of fictional designs and stories to existing spaces , giving the user a different spatial semantics.

In the author’s formal definition of spatial narrative, spatiality and space-related narratives are considered. Spatial narratives are defined as “using augmented reality to map linear narratives to corresponding spatial trajectories based on GPS information, and to modify connectivity-related multimedia content”. In the spatial narrative structure, the spatial structure and the narrative structure are organized in a hierarchical manner (Figure 2), and the spatial structure is space (Space)-point of interest (POI)-geographically related content (Geotagged Content) from top to bottom. The narrative structure from top to bottom is Spacetelling Content-POI Content-Authoring point.

Figure 2: Spatial elements and narrative elements contained in spatial narratives.

After completing the definition, the author developed a spatial narrative creation prototype system (Figure 3), the main content of which is a web-based spatial narrative story creation tool. In this tool, the user first selects a target cultural relic scenic spot on the map (Figure 3-A, B), and then the user can combine the map and the sidebar to browse the multimedia information associated with the corresponding POI (Figure 3-C), and then The user creates the outline (Figure 3-D) and specific details (Figure 3-E) of the story and previews the created story narrative trajectory in the tool (Figure 3-F).

Figure 3: Prototype of spatial narrative authoring tool developed by the authors

The author recruited 22 subjects to use this prototype system, provided three different Korean cultural heritage candidate sites, provided many prefabricated multimedia story materials, combined with the observation of the user’s creative process and results and interviews with the user, The experimental results were analyzed using grounded theory. The analysis of the experimental results starts from creative intention (Figure 4), spatial organization (Figure 5) and narrative structure (Figure 6), and analyzes the relationship between the three dimensions (Figure 7).

Figure 4: Two different creator intents summarized by the authors.

Figure 5: Two different narrative structures summarized by the authors.

Figure 6: Two different ways of spatial organization summarized by the authors.

Figure 7: Correlations between creator intent, narrative style, and spatial organization

Finally, the author divides spatial narrative creation into two modes in general: story-centered spatial narrative and space-centered spatial narrative (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Two modes of spatial narrative summarized by the authors.

In addition, the author also gives three suggestions to guide the development of spatial narrative creation tools:

• Authoring tools should provide templates and materials suitable for different creative purposes.
• The authoring tool should support auxiliary design adapted to the space-time environment, such as providing some reinforcement materials arranged on the path between two POIs to reduce or utilize the breakpoints in the exploration story, and for example, different importance levels for different POIs , to help visitors plan their time.
• The creator of the story needs to experience the feelings of tourists in person. If the experience cannot be experienced in the actual scenic spot due to conditional restrictions, the creation tool can help creators experience the feelings of tourists with the help of virtual reality technology.

In this article, the author investigates the creative process of spatial narrative, focusing on the analysis of the creator’s intention, the spatial organization of the story and the narrative structure, revealing two main modes of spatial narrative. The conclusions produced by this paper can support the creation and research of story narratives in visualization. In addition, the research ideas and methods of gradually splitting and cross-considering the two elements of space and narrative in story narratives are also worthy of our attention. learn from.

references:

[1] Jae-eun Shin, Woontack Woo: How Space is Told: Linking Trajectory, Narrative, and Intent in Augmented Reality Storytelling for Cultural Heritage Sites. CHI 2023: 241:1-241:14.

[2] Barney Glaser, Anselm Strauss: The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. 1967. Chicago: Aldine.

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