Mohamad Hjeij, Mario Montagud, David Rincón-Rivera, Sergi Fernandez Langa
Social Virtual Reality (VR) is emerging as a powerful medium for remote social interaction and collaboration, enabling multiple users to share experiences together while apart. Likewise, recent advances in multimedia technologies have proposed strategically combining diverse content formats and introducing interaction techniques for recreating virtual environments and engaging with them, respectively. This study pioneers the joint exploration of Social VR enhanced with holographic communication, multimodal content integration, and advanced interaction methods to deliver realistic and interactive group visits to reconstructed cultural heritage sites, specifically an existing restaurant–museum. The reconstructed space is further augmented with Points of Interest (PoIs), which can be freely visited and dynamically activated to provide rich contextual and historical information about the venue. The proposed technology and scenario have been evaluated objectively and subjectively. Results from objective tests offer relevant insights into the technical requirements, performance metrics (including bandwidth usage and latency), and overall system stability. Results from subjective tests with 22 participant pairs reveal high levels of user satisfaction, particularly in terms of immersion, presence, togetherness, and interaction quality regardless of whether participants acted as Guides (interacting with the VR environment) or Followers (observing and following the Guide’s actions). Beyond demonstrating feasibility, the findings from this study prove, for the first time, how strategically combining multi-user holoportation with multimodal content and role-based interactions can enable guided, collaborative cultural or touristic visits that preserve social presence while supporting rich exploration and contextual learning.