Changing the Look of a City: The v-corfu Case

Changing the Look of a City: The v-corfu Case Georgios Tsoumanis Department of Informatics Ionian University Corfu, Greece Email: gtsoum@greenlab.di.ionio.gr Eleni Kavvadia Department of Informatics Ionian University Corfu, Greece Email: ekavvadia@ionio.gr Konstantinos Oikonomou Department of Informatics Ionian University Corfu, Greece Email: okon@ionio.gr Abstract Virtual Worlds are becoming a valuable tool for teaching history and promoting cultural heritage in places like the city of Corfu, an Unesco monument. In this paper, virtual Corfu (v-corfu) is presented, i.e., a virtual world consisting of historical buildings, monuments and other existing sites characteristic of the city of Corfu, transformed into virtual sites (v-sites). A possible way of implementing v-corfu as an education enhancer tool is explored here, focusing on the ability to promote the study of the city s history, highlight its culture and increase its attractiveness to interested potential visitors (e.g., students, tourists) or even its inhabitants. By exploiting the fact that most of these sites represented in v-corfu do exist in the city, the aim is to further improve education by playing in the duality of both worlds. This is achieved by (i) projecting movie-like virtual tours (v-tours) consisting of parts of v-corfu next to the real ones; and (ii) by having avatars of important historical persons participating in v-corfu and walking nearby places that used to be their whereabouts in times long past. Both v-sites and avatars have the capability, through special virtual assistants (v-assistants), to provide the viewers with pieces of information related with the particular site or the person represented by the avatar. I. INTRODUCTION Over the past few years, virtual worlds and how they can be used to amplify education and other sciences or metiers has attracted an increased research volume. Various technological advances and mostly the abundance of computational power and memory, allow for moderate computer machines like tablets, to acceptably support needy virtual reality applications like virtual worlds. These advances can be exploited for educational purposes in various areas (e.g., physics, history). The focus here is on exploiting the capabilities of virtual worlds to enhance the visiting experience in a city of historical and cultural interest like the city of Corfu. A visitor in a real site, e.g., a student or a tourist, is expected to further enhance his knowledge about the visiting site (and overall of Corfu), if he is able to visit the virtual correspondent of the real site, i.e., the virtual site or v-site. All v-sites are parts of a virtual representation of the city of Corfu, to be referred to hereafter as virtual Corfu (v-corfu) along with other attributes likes avatars, educational assistances etc. aiming to enhance the real visiting experience in terms of knowledge about the cultural heritage of the city. Corfu is a place full of characteristic monuments, buildings, squares and beautiful corners (all called sites in the sequel). Having being inhabited by several civilizations, there still survive numerous corresponding footprints to be seen, built by the Greeks, the Venetians, the French, the British and others nations, resulting in the special Corfiot style. This is reflected in the variation of the Corfu sites, each one highlighting the age it was built as well as the builder s nation style. These properties are the basic reason for considering Corfu as an ideal place for applications promoting the study of history and cultural heritage. The promotion of studying history by using Corfu sites can also be an educative task. It can give visitors glimpses of history concerning the sites and the civilizations which have inhabited Corfu. By visualizing the sites in a virtual world environment, studying the history of Corfu would be enhanced in a fancy and impressive manner that can improve education when in conjunction with the classical process of history studying. Besides, Corfu is a well-known touristic destination and enhancing and meliorating these visitors to the sites will be an advantage for the city and the inhabitants as a destination for high quality tourism interested in the history and the culture of the visited place. In this proposal, a way to enhance the considered sites with educative aspects is proposed by using the technological advances of virtual reality. The virtual reference of Corfu (i.e., v-corfu) is considered here to enhance the individuals experience during their (real) site visiting. Each v-site of v-corfu is the basic material in creating a movie-like virtual tour (v-tour) concerning the site itself. This v-tour, regarding the particular v-site, has the look of a 3d (three dimensional) movie. The basic aim is to provide the viewers with information about the real site highlighting various aspects (e.g., its look in the past, historical references etc.) which will help them to visualize certain aspects and thus enhance their knowledge about the site and, eventually, the history of Corfu. Apart from v-sites, v-corfu includes educative avatars. These avatars correspond to real persons having lived in Corfu in the past and whose lives and personality have been of importance not only to Corfu or Greece but also on European level. Those virtually created characters are alive in v-corfu and participate in the visitors experience by giving further insight about their person, the corresponding v-site related to them (e.g., their home), or the particular field they are known for (e.g., history, poetry etc.). The particular information, which is conveyed through the v-site to the interested visitor, depends on the real site itself. The general approach is to enhance parts of the v-site (called

objects) using special virtual assistants (v-assistants). So, each v-tour will give the viewers historical tips about the presented site and, depending on the case, about some historical persons who are related with this particular site by enhancing some of the v-sites parts (i.e., objects) with v-assistants. In particular, pop-up notes being showed during the virtual tour and subtitles under avatars, are but a few examples of v-assistants. It is also possible to customize a visit based on special requests (e.g., in the case of students and in co-operation with their teachers). The following Section II includes information about past related work. Corfu s cultural heritage seen in sites and through the lives of historical persons, is discussed in Section III. The way these sites and historical persons are transformed in v-sites and avatars resulting in v-corfu is presented in Section IV. The way v-corfu is enhanced by the v-assistants is described in Section V. In Section VII, the way visitors experience fragments of Corfu s history and culture through the use of v-corfu is discussed and in Section VIII, the target group of v-corfu users, along with the proposed method of planning a v-corfu projection is presented. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in Section IX. II. PAST RELATED WORK There is a growing body of academic literature exploring the use of virtual worlds in enhancing education. Part of this focus is on Second Life [1], [2] and other platforms to make them workable in teaching sciences like physics [3], while some others are constructing virtual worlds to present or teach objects with historical or other scientific meaning [4]. T.A. Mikropoulos and A. Natsis in their ten year review of empirical research [5] have mentioned that Forty (40) out of the 53 empirical studies in their research refer to science, technology and mathematics. Teaching or studying history and presenting cultural heritage through the virtual worlds is a topic used in some very interesting papers. Hokanson et al., 2008 [6], describe the creation of a virtual Mandan village, in order to teach students the history and culture of the Mandan tribe, by using the virtual world and some avatars playing the role of the habitats and participating in a game made for the students to play. In Rome reborn project [7], creators are virtually creating the historical city of Rome as it appeared in 320 AD. In this proposal, the player is taught history of Rome by interacting with autonomous virtual Romans. Two other projects of the same concept, are the The Pompeii project [8] and the Pennsylvania station project [9]. In the Pompeii project, the creators are reviving the completely buried city of Pompeii during an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius and populate it with crowds of Virtual Romans, while in Pennsylvania station project, the authors are virtually reconstructing and presenting the famous demolished in 1963 train station. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first time a virtual world representing a city is used as a basic material in creating a movie (virtual tour) and being used as an enhancer of education. III. CORFU CULTURAL HERITAGE Corfu s cultural heritage can be traced in many aspects of the city s everyday life. Here, the focus is mainly on monuments/buildings, which survive either as structures or in the memory of the people and historical persons who have shaped the city s unique character and are influential not only in Corfu or Greece but also in European level. A. Sites An essential characteristic of Corfu sites refers to the variation of their construction date and their individual style, due to the numerous civilizations that left their footprint in the city for more than 2500 years. A visitor of Corfu is able to find both culturally and historically important sites, related to various periods of its history. Supplementary to this, modern museums present interesting artifacts of those periods. A useful categorization of Corfu sites, is the following: 1) Forts 2) Palaces 3) Archaeological sites 4) Temples 5) Museums Two of them, the Old Fort (Fortezza), initially built by the Byzantines and New fort (Fortezza Nuova) built by the Venetians, belong to the first category. The Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George, constructed in 1819-1824 during the British rule in Corfu, belongs to the second one. The Temple of Artemis, built in 590 BC is an archaeological site of high interest, as it is one of earliest Doric temples. The temple of Agios Spyridon, built in 1589, is part of the temples category and one of the city s highlights. Finally, the Corfu Banknotes museum belongs to the museums category. The aim here is to virtually represent these sites, thus transform them into v-sites and add them in v-corfu. Most of these sites (e.g., the ones previously given as examples) do exist today and can be visited in the real world. Having watched them and studied parts of their history, the same visitor can also watch a virtual tour on the same sites, using v-corfu, thus enhancing the already gained knowledge. Additionally, each site represents a facet of Corfu culture, in which visitors try to feel and get immersed for a few moments. By using v-corfu, they can further absorb pieces of Corfu cultural heritage, thus getting accultured with the city for some time. B. Historical persons Corfu is also famous for the plethora of important persons having lived in it since the ancient time and their lives been of pan-european significance. Others were born there, while others had lived significant parts of their lives in Corfu. Ioannis Kapodistrias (11 February 1776-9 October 1831) is a prominent example of a person, of high historical interest for both Greece and Europe, whose life is strongly related to Corfu. Ioannis Kapodistrias was born in Corfu, had an exceptional european carrier as a diplomat and was the first Governor of Greece. Dionysios Solomos (8 April 1798-9 February 1857), writer of the poem Hymn to Liberty,

of which the first two stanzas, set to music by Nikolaos Chalikiopoulos Mantzaros, became the Greek national anthem in 1865, has lived a big part of his life in Corfu. Nikolaos Chalikiopoulos Mantzaros (26 October 1795-12 April 1872) himself, born and lived the major part of his life in Corfu, also belongs to this list of high importance persons related to Corfu. The challenging issue here, with respect to the history and their contribution to it, is to implement these persons as avatars. Their participation in v-corfu is of high importance since their presence enhances the experience of the visitors. IV. IMPLEMENTING V-CORFU The challenge in creating v-corfu has been the use of the implemented v-sites for educational purposes, thus increasing the knowledge obtained by a visitor to a site in the real world. The main asset to achieve this aim, is the sites dual existence in both the virtual and the real world, along with the implemented avatars of historical persons related with them and generally with the city of Corfu (e.g., Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias is an avatar related to Kapodistria s Mansion the latter being an existing site and included in v-corfu as a v- site). Note that v-corfu consists of real Corfu sites in addition to a number of great monuments either no longer existing or being affected by time. This enables a visitor to be given an insight about each site. Another opportunity given by v- Corfu is the ability to (virtually) visit existing sites that are not normally open to visitors (e.g., the Ionian Academy, which hosts nowadays the deanery of the Ionian University). A. v-sites As mentioned in the introduction of Section IV, v-corfu consists of sites that exist, along with sites which no longer exist, transformed into v-sites. The v-sites added to v-corfu could be partitioned in the following groups: 1) existing sites in good condition. 2) existing sites in bad condition. 3) non-existing sites. 4) non-visitable sites Fig. 1. Map showing some of the points of interest, which are included in v- Corfu. 1-Kapodistrias Mansion. 2-Readers Society. 3-West wing of Palace. 4-Part of The Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George. 5-Museum of Asian art. 6-Municipal Art gallery of Corfu. 7-Mandrakina. 8-Museum of Antivouniotissa. 9-Kremasti square. 10-Church of Saint Spyridon. 11-Cofu Banknotes museum. 12-Spilia entrance. Existing sites in good condition: This particular sites group is comprised of sites which are maintained, nowadays, in good shape and are not damaged in their interior or exterior (e.g., the temple of Agios Spyridon). The museums are also part of this group, giving extra information about their exhibits. These sites are transformed in v-sites and appear in v-corfu as close as possible in the reality. For example, the various museums and their exhibits are added in their current state with no intention for changes at all. Small adjustments are made to the rest of the sites if this is needed (e.g., the fortress walls in certain places affected by time). Existing sites in bad condition: In this group, sites which exist but are in need of several corrections during their transformation in v-sites, are added. Some of them are completely abandoned (e.g., Villa Rosa) and some of them have been spoiled over the years (e.g., the 13th century Cave Byzantine fortress of Gardiki). Using photos and images of their current look and comparing them with those representing their past one, corrupted objects are included in v-corfu, attempting to be represented as they used to be in the past. Non-existing sites: Some of the high historical interest sites of Corfu no longer exist (e.g., Porta Reale). Constructing the corresponded v-sites is one of the most challenging tasks in v-corfu. First, a stage of research is needed to collect the necessary information and material about the non-existing site. Materials needed for creating the v-sites and their objects, have to be taken from old photos and images and even paintings, resulting in a very time-consuming process. Non-visitable sites: This last group of sites consists of those buildings that even though they do exist in the real world, cannot be visited. There are several reasons for this, the main being their use for other purposes (e.g., Kapodistrias Mansion is used to host a department of Ionian University). B. Avatars Realism is one of the main challenges in v-corfu and can be supported by adding avatars in v-corfu. Apart from adding realism to v-corfu, avatars are also used for education purposes in the form of historical persons. Roaming avatars: Roaming avatars in v-corfu are used just to add realism. As in every real city, v-corfu needs to look an alive city. Roaming avatars represent habitats of the city, who walk around v-corfu, doing things every day people do. As an example, in the (virtual) Spianada square, there are avatars animated to look like as if drinking coffee in one of the square s cafeterias and some young lads playing football on the playground. Educative avatars: Educative avatars, which are enhanced with v-assistants (explained in Section V), play a significant role in v-corfu educative purposes. Educative avatars represent real persons, whose life is linked with Corfu (e.g., Ioannis Kapodistrias, Dionisios Solomos). The challenge here is most people s having in their minds a model of how these people were, even though they have never actually met them. Consequently, even if apart from photographs, paintings and sculptures there is no other evidence to create the avatar,

its presence has to resemble the inner feelings these people trigger to individuals, through their life and work. As a result, sufficient research and preparation is required, involving study of the work of the particular persons. V. ENHANCING V-CORFU In order to make v-corfu available for educational purposes, its v-sites, along with the educative avatars, are used in a way they become useful for an individual to get information related to history and the culture of the city. This happens by implementing the so-called v-assistants, i.e., properties of an object or avatar, which allows them to present additional information. v-assistants related to objects: As already mentioned, some of the v-assistants are related to objects. They have the form of pop-up notes appearing next to the object and giving hints of the object or of the whole v-site, related with its past or with its cultural meaning. As an example, in Kapodistria s Mansion v-site in v-corfu, a note pops-up when approaching the virtual building s entrance. This particular v-assistant gives the visitor useful information about the building s history and a useful guide of how to walk around the building. v-assistants related to avatars: The v-assistants, related to avatars, correspond to a mix of animation features which provide information. An avatar enhanced with v-assistant s capability, is able to move in specific positions, thus guiding the viewers to specific places-objects (e.g., rooms) of a site (i.e., a v-site). Moreover, the avatar is animated in a way that looks like talking (i.e., its lips moving like spelling words) and the viewers get the information by reading the subtitles shown in the bottom of the screen. Prospectively, this could be done by further advancing the v-assistant with the ability to generate sounds. VI. CONSTRUCTING V-CORFU The entire process of constructing the v-sites and other objects needed for efficiently implementing v-corfu, has several phases that need to be followed. For each phase, different software is employed, specific for the tasks under each one. The entire process is divided into four different tasks and their sequence is shown next. 1) Collect all items needed to construct the v-sites (photos, videos, buildings designs). 2) Create the v-sites and other objects, added to the virtual world (e.g. terrains, buildings). 3) Construct the avatars, along with their animations and v-assistants if needed 4) Integrate the outcome of the previous tasks in order to create v-corfu and add v-assistants related with objects. In the sequel, the primary materials and the software required are described, to implement the various phases when constructing v-corfu. A. Collecting primary materials By primary materials it is meant all the buildings architectural designs available and the required photos of the sites to help the creators in constructing v-corfu. Photos: Photos are taken of every single v-site and object to be constructed, and used in order to make the geometry of the site out of them and create the materials which are assigned on the objects. For example, when creating a window, one can use photos to get a view of its shape and create the geometry in 3ds Max. After that, the same photos can be used to create images (called materials) which after the appropriate elaboration (called mapping), they can be assigned on these shapes to create a virtual window that looks like the real one. Moreover, when creating an avatar, photos can be used to give the avatar the appearance of a real character. Taking all these aspects into consideration, photos are of great importance and many of them and from as many different angles as possible are needed. Buildings designs: In order to give the visitors the true feeling of the real world when they visit the virtual one, dimensions play a crucial role. In particular, they have to be similar to the real ones, after the necessary scaling. To achieve this, buildings designs are rather helpful and the necessary first step towards implementation. B. Software The software being used is described next, focusing on the particular aspects it is used for constructing v-corfu. Specific commercial software packages, suitable for this work, are used here. The description followed is not specific for the particular software package and any other similar could be used as well. Therefore, rather that describing the software itself, its usage is described in the sequel. 3d Studio Max: Autodesk 3d Studio Max [10] is used for the creation of the different v-sites, along with their internal and external objects. The internal environment is indispensable when constructing v-sites. Most of the other objects are created externally only, because of their not being points of interest. For example, when constructing the Kapodistria s Mansion, all the surrounding buildings are also created to give the feeling of the building and its surroundings, but only the Mansion s internal has been created. The surrounding buildings, externally only created, along with the area outside the Kapodistria s Mansion are implemented on the surface, except from those that are of specific historical interest (e.g., the Saint George and Michael Palace). Reallusion iclone: iclone [11] is the chosen program being used to construct the avatars being added on the virtual world, along with the corresponding animation and v-assistants, if having to do with an educative avatar. This software, besides being able to accept many changes in creating the outward appearance of the avatar, it also makes it possible to use photos regarding the face of the avatar, giving the creators the opportunity to implement avatars with reference to existing or once existed people. Unity3d Engine: Unity3d [12] gives the creators the opportunity to create terrains that consist of roads, pavements, sea, weather phenomena, mountains and almost everything that can be found in a real world. The next step is to include all elements, avatars and other objects constructed in 3ds Max

and iclone on the terrain implemented in Unity3d. Unity3d is also the program being used, to add v-assistants related with objects. The outcome is a v-site with its surroundings or many of the v-sites with their surroundings together. Additionally, v-tours are produced by using Unity3d s cameras abilities and scripting. Many cameras are placed in several places in v-corfu, each of them recording particular points of v-corfu. Every v-tour is the outcome of the assemble by some of the recordings made by the unity3d s cameras. Photoshop: Because of the use of photos as the basic tool to get the shapes and materials out of the v-sites and objects, photo correcting techniques have to be adopted. A lot of photos are taken from bad angles, some others appear to have obstacles in front of the objects and some others have bad colors/light. Techniques like perspective or wrap transformation, healing and color correction are some of those being employed. A. v-tours VII. EXPERIENCING V-CORFU As aforementioned, a v-tour is associated with every v-site. Through this v-tour, it is intended to highlight and discuss the cultural and historical aspects of every site in the city of Corfu by showing pop-up notes, related with a v-site or one of its objects. Besides, educative avatars will extend the viewers knowledge on a site, or give information about the past lives of the important characters they virtually stand for. The v-tour for every site is created as a movie, in order to be projected in one of the site s places, suitable for projection (e.g., wall) and is preferably watched during the night and even better, outdoors. These characteristics can create an outstanding atmosphere for the viewer, who may study the history of a site by watching a state of the art created 3d movie. B. Projecting v-tours Because of the variety of sites (presented in III-A, which are transformed in v-sites in v-corfu, the projection may differ from one another. When the v-tour is about an existing site in good condition (e.g., a museum), then its role is to present the site as it is and give information to the viewer, adding to the information taken by his real visit. Regarding the sites in bad condition, the virtual creation of the sites as they used to be in the past, when they were in good condition, will excite the viewers. The same applies to the existing but not visitable sites. One can watch the v-tour referring to it and learn many useful pieces of information regarding its past use (e.g., Kapodistrias s Mansion, as headquarters of President of the Ionian Senate). The projections for these kinds of buildings could be done in one of their walls during the night, so as to provide further knowledge to the viewer, who have previously visited the place or intend to visit it in the future. Using v-corfu projections for non-existing sites, is a challenging prospect and one that may be of the most educative aspects of v-corfu. A complete virtual reconstruction of the site is taking place, allowing the viewers to learn about a site that no longer exists. As an example, if one wants to see Porta Reale, the only option available is to have a look on some old photos or paintings depicting it. By watching the v-tour about the corresponding v-site in v-corfu, one can get an insight about these sites. v-tours can be projected close to the place that the non-existing sites were located at and if possible, on one of the new building s wall, which was constructed there after the site had been demolished. Fig. 2. v-tours are created with the use of v-corfu VIII. EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS One of the objectives of presenting v-corfu to a visitor of a site in Corfu, is to further expand his/her knowledge about the city s historical and cultural heritage. In this section, this significant aspect is discussed, concerning the target group of v-corfu, along with the way each one can add knowledge in himself by watching v-tours projected on the sites corners. A. Target group The use of v-corfu to promote the study of a site s history, mostly involves secondary education students, but elder people are also included, forming a special group by themselves. In particular, history is often a subject of interest for numerous people and a big incentive for many others to make them travel far away to spend their vacation periods. Teaching students history is also crucial for their educational needs and for cultivating the citizens of tomorrow. Using the state of the art in 3d is expected to make v-corfu attractive for the younger visitors. However, it has been seen that older ages are some times more enthusiastic than their younger counterparts. Even though not necessary, both target groups are expected to visit the city of Corfu, or motivated to do so, to intensify their experience. Eventually, this boosts tourism and particularly high quality tourism that improves significantly the local economy. As a conclusion, the target group consists of a variety of ages. School classes, clubs consisting of individuals with cultural and historical interests and in general educational interested individuals. B. Plan of a visit Although it may seem simple to organize a visit in a site which includes a projection of a v-tour, someone should take into consideration some meaningful characteristics of them. These features have to do with the time of the day the visit is made, along with the cooperation of the group leaders (e.g., teachers or escorts when discussing about schools or tourist groups respectively) and the creators of v-corfu.

It is highly recommended the visit to a site to be made after the sunset, if someone wants to combine it with a v-tour. The v-tour is movie-like, so daylight does not allow for the best experience, if someone wants to use it outdoors. Moreover, considering the weather conditions, organizing them during a summery month would be better, because of the outdoors projection. From the authors point of view, projecting v-corfu during summer and during the night is the best option for utilizing it. Of course, in case of some visitors (e.g., schools), where the visit during the night is usually difficult, a projection in a site s room or even in a school s class could me made. For all these reasons a cooperation between the group leaders and the administrators of v-corfu should be made before a visit. Moreover, it would be beneficial to create an educative plan together. As an example, a teacher who has chosen to visit a site in Corfu, in which a v-tour is projected, could inform the creators about the lesson he wants to teach to the students, so as their mounting v-tour to match their needs. If their visit is at Kapodistria s Mansion and they want to give more importance in Kapodistria s life, rather than the building itself, the creators will edit the tour in order to have more time allocated to the avatar representing Ioannis Kapodistrias, explaining parts of the governor s own life. In furtherance of the indicated research, all visits will contribute to the probe which is planned to be conducted. Every visitor, even youth ones, will fill in a questionnaire, after having completed their v-corfu experience. The questionnaires parts will be distinguished, according to each visitor s incentive of attending a v-tour. As an example, after a school has attended a v-tour, teachers and students will be provided with questionnaires, which will be differed from each other. Teachers will answer questions which deal with the teaching aspects and students with the learning ones. The goal here, apart from experimenting v-corfu, is to meliorate it, taking into consideration the visitors opinions and proposals. As a result, v-corfu will be viable and contemporary over the years. IX. CONCLUSION In this paper, the way a virtual world can be reverted in an educational tool to promote the study of history and culture of Corfu is presented. This so-called virtual Corfu (v-corfu) consists of a number of virtual sites (v-sites) corresponding to real ones, a number of avatars corresponding to real person that have lived in Corfu and they are of pan-european interest and a number of virtual assistants that support the education process during a virtual tour (v-tour). The main idea is to assist a real visitor in the city of Corfu to get information about special areas, buildings, corners of the city and the historical/cultural events related to it. This is further enhanced by avatars corresponding to important persons having lived in Corfu in the past. For example, Kapodistria s mansion is a building that cannot be visited but by projecting its interior in a nearby wall, the interested visitor will get a better opinion about the site itself. Moreover, this building is related to Ioannis Kapodistrias, a prominent European diplomat and politician in the early nineteenth century. Its corresponding avatar, enhanced by v-assistant, is able to convey further information to the visitors. This idea was thoroughly explained in this paper along the various technological challenges imposed by this approach. First, a useful categorization with respect to the real sites is introduced dividing them between existing and not existing ones. The first category is further divided to those that can be visited and those that this is not possible. The case of the non-existing buildings is the most challenging one since it involves research in various archives. On the other hand, its educational value is high, since it sheds light on significant and often neglected parts of the history of Corfu. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This work was supported in part by project Buildings, Culture and Environment in a Virtual World of the Ionian Islands for Touristic Promotion, which is partially funded by European and National Greek Funds (ESPA) under the Regional Operational Programme Western Greece-Peloponnese- Ionian Islands 2007-2013. REFERENCES [1] Jia Shen, Lauren B. Eder, Intentions to Use Virtual Worlds for Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, 2009. 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