The VR experience system of acrobat figure for cultural heritage knowledge dissemination

As the world cultural heritage, the Mausoleum of Qinshihuang with the Terracotta Warriors pits, carries the deep spirit and bloodline of the Chinese nation. The acrobat figure unearthed in the Qin Mausoleum’s K9901 burial pit, vividly reflects the acrobat arts and other court entertainment activities of Qin Dynasty and shows the image of acrobat artists at that time. It provides a new perspective for future generations to understand the society of the Qin Dynasty, with important historical, artistic, and scientific value. Currently the digitalization of the Terracotta Warriors mainly focuses on Warriors burial pits and cultural relics, there are few digitalized researches and practices targeting the acrobat figure. For the acrobat figure, the important cultural heritage, this paper aims to conduct research on the knowledge dissemination and experience of the acrobat figure using virtual reality (VR) technology. Firstly, the 3D data of the acrobat figure is processed, the user’s movement in the VR environment is guided by the redirected walking algorithm based on artificial potential fields, and the real-time and accurate feedback of the complex interactive actions is achieved by spherical intersection based collision detection algorithm; secondly, a Qin Dynasty Baixi VR experience system is constructed by adopting the progressive design method based on learning; finally, combining with the unified theory of acceptance and use (UTAUT) model and the user’s behavioral tendency, Baixi VR is compared with the traditional ways (documentary and webpage) of cultural heritage knowledge dissemination in aspects of knowledge dissemination results (KDR), performance expectancy (PE), and effort expectancy (EE), then the users’ experience data and their differences are analyzed and evaluated. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional approach, the Baixi VR experience system significantly improves the users’ motivation and willingness of exploration, and enhances the audiences’ knowledge experience of the cultural heritage of the acrobat figure, which provides an effective solution for the dissemination of cultural heritage knowledge in the audience, especially in the young group of the audience.