The effect of immersion towards place presence in virtual heritage environments

Despite the advancement of digital technology in virtual heritage (VH) projects, there is still a paucity of research in methods to support sense of place in architectural virtual heritage environment (VHE). This paper argues that studies on the sensation of place in a virtual environment (VE) could be linked to the ever-expanding presence research domain. The impact of the level of immersion and realism in VE towards evoking the sense of presence could be considered to be one of the most discussed topics in presence research. This paper presents the methods and findings from a qualitative experiment designed to analyse user's real-time feedbacks from three levels of immersive systems. The experiment aims to measure the significance of virtual presence in contributing towards user's sense of place experience in a VHE. Based on the findings, the system that produces a better virtual presence such as HMD may not be suitable for all type of users even if it delivers better learning experience of cultural heritage places. It may, however, only be determined by personal preferences and immersive device factors.