Virtual Reality as an Agent of Preservation

Staff from the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery's Living Environments Laboratory and the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society describe their use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scanning and virtual reality (VR) technologies in preservation. After explaining the mechanisms behind LiDAR and VR and giving a brief history of both, the authors describe their own projects, which include 3-D models of Taliesin East and Wisconsin's Norway Building. Finally, they discuss the future of VR in preservation—its potential and its limitations.