Comprehensive systematic review on virtual reality for cultural heritage practices: coherent taxonomy and motivations

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has been reaching its maturity level for practical applications amongst many fields of studies, especially in the exploration system of applied VR in cultural heritage that enables virtual walkthroughs. However, this study remains scattered and limited in the area of applied VR in cultural heritage. Therefore, a comprehensive systematic review is conducted to create a coherent taxonomy within this research scope through extensive article searches on VR, virtual heritage, and usability. Articles were searched from four databases, consisting of an expansive collection of literature covering studies from 2007 to January 2020. A total of 290 articles were obtained from the final data search and categorized into 4 taxonomy schemes classifications. The classes consist of VR-related review or survey articles, case studies, systems design and development, and evaluation studies. This paper also presents the robust and generic motivations based on the derived taxonomy of the integration of VR in cultural heritage in the context of software and hardware applications, designs, developments and assessments. The article searches also ascertained that applied VR in cultural heritage could broadly be utilized to provide customizable multimedia contents inside the VR environments, resulting in a higher degree of immersion, and this sense of presence, especially in the reconstruction of cultural heritage via applied VR. Henceforth, VR in cultural heritage has the power to extend its capabilities of influencing users by capturing their attention, which are essential functionalities in multimedia VR systems designed for transferring historical information in a more enriched, immersive, and effective manner