Boats of Every Description: Interactive Projection

The Client

National Waterways Museum

The Brief

To create an interactive and immersive exhibition using innovative digital technology to improve visitor access to boats within the museum’s collection that are difficult to access.

The team at the museum were keen to incorporate interactivity and a gaming element into their exhibition, but didn’t want to install touchscreens, VR headsets or rely on joysticks to navigate through virtual content. Using interactive projection, we created walls that could be tapped and swiped to explore virtual vessels, play games and animations, and bring old photographs to life.

Using scan data and original plans we recreated the vessels in 3D to enable visitors to explore their virtual interiors. By incorporating interactive ‘hotspots’ we enabled visitors to virtually open drawers and doors, to leaf through diaries and brochures and to find out more about life on board.

We incorporated filmed characters into old photographs so that when visitors tapped them they came to life, we set visitors the challenge of loading and gauging a narrowboat and created interactive animations to tell the tale of two boats separated through their working lives but reunited at the museum.

Combining projection with depth-sensing cameras we created a virtual icebreaker to allow visitors to ‘rock the boat’ and clear a path through the frozen waterways just as boatmen would have done many years ago.

The exhibition has been really well received, transforming the visitor experience at the museum.