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As an example of the technology and a peek of what I could create within a short time frame, I set out to incorporate the DeGrazia Madonna, a variety of Mother Mary statues, and the Erma Bombeck Rose Gallery exhibit from 2022 into a virtual reality (VR) experience on the Quest. As a simple art exhibit, I added UI panels for each of the statues and wall clings to describe the piece and recorded voice-over audio. The Rose Gallery was created in Blender, the wall clings were photographed and turned into usable textures, the DeGrazia Madonna was turned into a 3D model using Meshroom, and "The Juggler of Notre Dame" stained glass was modeled in Blender and textured painted from a photograph. The wind/water mill was modeled in Blender based on a course. These assets and models found on Sketchfab were used to create a simple environment in Unreal Engine 5.

Attributions:

• "Assai vivace" by Dee Yan-Key
• "Spring Birds Loop with Low-Cut (New Jersey)" by hargissssound
• "Saint Mary of Antioch" by Geoffrey Marchal
• "Statue of the Cloister Mother Mary" by Northern Heritage Network
• "The Virgin Mary with Child and Saints" by Computer Vision and Reverse Engineering Lab
• "Virgin Mary Clay Statue" by FilippoViciani
• "DeGrazia Madonna" by DeGrazia, M.
• Erma Bombeck Collection

I had the opportunity to assist with the "Juggler of Our Lady" exhibit at the University of Dayton Roesch Library by incorporating two pieces of technology. One aspect of this was a television displaying a looping slideshow to provide context to and display an animation. Near this television, we mounted an iPad to an old lectern to display hand-drawn storyboard panels of a different animation of the same story. Although both displays used RevealJS, a wonderfully easy-to-use presentation framework, the iPad also incorporated a pan-zoom library so the attendee could interact with the panels. I also developed a basic engagement tracker for the iPad display, recording sessions. These displays were easy to integrate into the exhibit and can be easily modified for future exhibits.

The Marian Library at the University of Dayton has various Mary-related statues. This DeGrazia Madonna statue was previously photographed using a rotary table. I used Meshroom, a photogrammetry application, to generate a 3D model based on these images. Although the photos were not ideal for reconstruction, Meshroom created a reasonably clean model. I used Blender to smooth out inaccurate geometry at the head and base and corrected some areas of the texture. The resulting model is imperfect, but it was a successful test of capability based on previously captured photos and free software. See the model at Sketchfab.