A 3D virtual tour of the Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex in Siena, Italy, based on the use of Oculus Rift HMD

In this paper we present the realization of a 3D virtual museum tour through the use of paired full-panoramas, to be displayed using the Head-Mounted Display “Oculus Rift”. The paper analyzes in details every stage of the project, from the starting point, i.e. the collection of the required images, to the end, that is the creation of the tour itself. The proposed solution is conceived to be developed using off-the-shelf devices in order to be easily replicated in other contexts: in particular, image capture is performed using two paired GoPro Hero 3 cameras. While this solution can be applied in several different scenarios this paper focuses on the development of a virtual reproduction of the Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex in Siena, Italy.