Developing an app for The Great Church Veere (Grote Kerk Veere) in the Netherlands was no easy feat. The app provides information about visiting the church and also offered an Augmented Reality tour guide that creats cohesion between already existing experiences in the Veere Experience Center.
————————————————————————————————————————————–
On one of the islands of beautiful Zealand, lies an equally beautiful town; Veere. An ancient city with many tourists every year. More than one million people visit this tourist attraction every year because of its historical value.
One of the highlights is the Grote Kerk Veere, the name says it all. A big church. In Veere.
Great Church Veere Experience Center
However, the church has long since ceased to be used as a church. Where it once served as a church, military hospital and poorhouse, it has now been converted into an experience center.
A number of interactive installations recount the history of Veere in a whirlwind fashion. The Great Church team was still missing something, namely cohesion between those experiences and a way to create more wonder. Something that would make a visit to the church a stimulating and cohesive experience, a guide in cultural sniffing. We could help with that.
To reach the cohesion of the church and its experiences, we developed an app that had two goals; to provide all the information and practicalities surrounding the visit, as well as to offer a digital tour guide that takes you through the church, its experiences and history.
That tour guide became none other than Wolfert VI van Borselen, the former patron of Veere and principal to build the church. One problem, Wolfert died in 1486. Fortunately, he did receive a life-size statue.
Great Church Veere Process
Using the LiDAR scanner that is now included in Ipads, we scanned Wolfert. Lots of photos are taken and stitched together by photogrammetry software to create a digital 3D model. Wolfert’s online avatar was born.
With a state-of-the-art motion capture suit from Rokoko, we were able to bring him back to life. The suit records every movement at every point of your body and links it to the avatar. By hoisting staff in the suit, we were able to give Wolfert the moves he needed to be a great tour guide. Rokoko also has excellent face capture, which allowed us to record Wolfert’s facial expressions and mouth movements so that it looks realistic when he speaks. This resulted in a statue of Wolfert VI that really came to life in Augmented Reality. He now guides visitors through the church.
The app contains all the information surrounding your visit to Grote Kerk Veere. Think opening hours, a map, stories, the calendar, podcasts and information about all the happenings at the church.
The goal of this project?
Creating more cohesion between the already existing experiences in the Great Church Veere, as well as bundling all peripheral information to contribute to the visitor’s tour of the church. Preferably in a way that would amaze and intrigue visitors, and take the entire experience to the next level.
The app was widely downloaded and visitors enjoyed the app, tour and all the virtual experiences. Wolfert is the connecting link between all that was happening in the church. The development of the app helped reach and entice a younger audience.
Great Church Veere Success?
Creating consistency and guiding visitors through your experiences is always a good idea. It gives people a purpose and makes them take in more information; they don’t just wander around. An app is modern and accessible; almost everyone has a smartphone. AR is also possible on any smartphone these days and adds a surprising and interesting component. The techniques we used to make an existing statue as le
ven to awaken worked incredibly well. We were very happy with the result ourselves, considering this was also the first time for us to work with a motion capture suit. We are curious to see what other use cases we may pull it out for.