Heritage visualisations are interpretations situated in place and time. They are shaped by the assumptions of the day and contain informed speculations. This paper describes Artistic License: VR Sydney Cove circa 1800 which is a VR artwork that directly addresses the liminal spaces of heritage visualisation. It examines the tensions between accuracy and authenticity in heritage visualisation and it discusses visual tropes in art. It concludes by arguing that the foregrounding of the interpretive nature of heritage visualisation by Artistic License: VR Sydney Cove circa 1800 directly engages with audiences to broaden the debate about the role of heritage in society.

Virtual worlds are increasingly being developed to provide a navigable space for museum collections. The Virtual Sydney Rocks (VSR) [3] is one such virtual world that has been constructed as an authentic representation of the area of first European settlement in Australia 230 years ago - from a time just before its settlement until the present day. We constructed two versions of a game for children in order to motivate interaction with, and learning of, the historical content of the VSR. One of these game versions contained a number of fantasy design elements with the idea that their inclusion would motivate children to engage with VSR content in a pleasurable way. A preliminary study with a small number of school-aged children was not able to show that the inclusion of fantasy elements affected either the comprehension of historical facts or the quality of moral judgements made by the children. This study did, however, provide some evidence that interactivity with the relevant parts of the virtual world may have affected the retention of historical facts.

This paper examines the critical importance of time to the experience of place and argues that time-based virtual heritage creates more engaging and affective virtual places supporting rich learning opportunities for heritage audiences. It examines the experience of place, heritage place and virtual place as instanced in state-of-the-art computer games. It discusses the use of heritage visualisation for public edification and the advantages of, and concerns related to, computer generated visualisations. It reports on a number of time-based virtual heritage projects that illustrate the power of time-based virtual heritage to create affective, memorable and educational experiences for the general public. The paper concludes by arguing that time-based virtual heritage supports richer virtual heritage places, both phenomenologically and culturally, and that these in turn offer engaging, affective and memorable experiences creating learning opportunities for the general public.

Digital visualisation technologies have transformed the field of heritage. The digital re-creation of a place demands much more than architectural modeling. Designers of virtual heritage places can learn from commercial computer games which can be very successful at creating a sense of place. The Virtual Sydney Rocks is designed to undertake research into the role that user preference for interaction strategy has on engagement in a Virtual Heritage Environment. Users can explore an experiential model of Sydney Cove between 1788 and 2008 in three different ways; by self directed exploration, by playing a game or by taking a tour. Users set the date and time to determine the position of the sun, the weather, the sounds that are heard and the buildings that are displayed. Users can also alter the speed of time. Additional information is accessed via the interlinked Virtual Sydney Rocks Guidebook.