Virtual museum

The following museums were created with digital technology before the web gained any form of popularity or mass usability.

Many online museums have become significant sources of scholarly information, including extensive citations within Wikipedia.

For the last few years, there have been projects related to Information Society Technologies dealing with: preservation of cultural heritage, restoration and learning resources.

European Community has founded various projects to support this filed, like V-Must, the Virtual Museum Transnational Network that aims to provide the heritage sector with the tools and support to develop Virtual Museums that are educational, enjoyable, long-lasting and easy to maintain.

Information and communication technologies are not merely tools for processing data and making it available, but can be a force and stimulus for cultural development.

One is to re-create 3D space with visual representations of the museum by a 3D architectural metaphor, which provides a sense of place using various spatial references.

In the case of EU-funded projects, the ViHAP3D, a new virtual reality system for scanning museum artifacts, has been developed by EU researchers.

[61] Depending on the scientific position of the researchers, industry or instrumental use, virtual museums are regarded and used in different ways.

For example, as a kind of creative activity; an innovative educational tool; a fashion or advertising project; а room with multimedia capabilities; the representation of the traditional Museum on the Internet; a gadget; the publication; website; type of communication; the electronic catalogue, etc.