Cultural heritage · in progress
Tanit XR Virtual Museum
Cultural heritage · in progress
This is the project I'm most excited about right now. Every object inside the museum was scanned in Tunisia by our volunteers, one at a time, and cleaned up by volunteers around the world. Then the objects are placed life-size in rooms that our volunteers modeled by hand: whitewashed walls, arches, a domed hall, a courtyard with a pool, tiled corridors, just like the ones back home.
The museum is built in Unity with photogrammetry and Gaussian splats, and it has ambient sound recorded at the real sites. Our guide, Nura, was modeled in Blender by the community. Her narrated tour, "Before It's Gone," is being written right now.
Progress so far: the first courtyard in January 2026, the domed hall and courtyard with a pool in March, and the second wing in greybox in August. We're planning to release it on Viverse so anyone can walk in from a browser or a headset.
My role is founder and coordinator. The rooms, the room kit and the models are the work of volunteers like Patrick Molen, Ala, Kristina Reyes, Cam Kania, Claire Natanek, Rachel West, Nick Kaufmann, Ana Beatriz Vega and Ray. I'm so grateful to every one of them!
The project I care about most. Volunteers in Tunisia and around the world scan our endangered heritage in 3D, one object at a time. 100+ free models so far!
Every object our volunteers scanned, in your browser. Turn it with a finger, hear Nura tell its story, save your favorites, or put on a headset.
A climate installation where you see a damaged world alone, and a restored one the moment you hold someone's hand.
Let's work together
I'd love to hear about it! Whether you want to scan a collection or build something in XR, let's talk.