We describe an innovative system designed for museums to create, manage and present multimedia based museum artefacts in virtual exhibitions both inside and outside museums. Our system creates digital surrogates through a novel stereo photogrammetry system with little user interaction. Resulting 3D objects are refined using state-of-the-art 3D modelling software configured for ease of use by museum staff. A repository of such digital surrogates is managed in an XML based relational database that provides the basis for the creation and presentation of virtual museum exhibitions, enabling current museum websites to evolve from a 2D to a 3D multimedia based domain. In this paper, we discuss the modelling and refinement processes which are based on stereo photogrammetry and the creation and visualisation of virtual museum exhibitions using virtual and augmented reality techniques.

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