Digital Geometry for Virtual Museum Based on Field Studies

The virtual museum is one direction of museum development. This digital museum allows freedom of access, number of accesses health-safety for the visitor, and security of collections. The design of the virtual museum space was developed simultaneously, to assist the presence of intellectual and emotional experiences, approaching the capabilities of conventional physical museums. Efforts to digitally reconstruct for museum space are strived continuously, by multiplying the room design variants and sharpening the attribute database. The attributes referred to here, are the geometry of the showroom platform, in the form of volume, percentage of pavilion cover, circulation, and arrangement of collections. More number of collections on digital space geometry designs and their attributes will enrich and sharpen the immersive performance of the virtual museum design in the future. This geometry data is also useful for further refining research, such as acoustic analysis and lighting design. The research method started with observation in 16 museums and exhibition galleries in East Java. The results of the observations were continued by collecting 24 variants of the general geometry design of the pavilion configuration space. The second stage is done with selection and tabulation based on similarities, to minimized repetition. At this stage, the analysis which is recorded from field observations regarding visibility, circulation comfort, and noise, was applied, so that the seven core geometric designs were obtained. Within the third stage, digital geometric drawing was created using Trimble SketchUp. Validation was done by testing the results, in the sound propagation ray-tracing software. The results of the study were seven digital geometries of the pavilion design variant. These geometries are capable of using as the basis, for developing more digital gallery or museum space design, with good quality space-visitor interaction.