Ada Zhou¹ and Joshua Lai², ¹USA, ²California State Polytechnic University, USA

The expression of art is incredibly important for young students. Equally important is allowing these students to showcase what they've done to peers and others. It helps them gain confidence in their own abilities and gives them motivation to practice their skills. The best way to do this is typically an in-person art gallery, but this is not always convenient. Those who wish to view the art may not always have the opportunity to travel to a physical location, and there are numerous costs associated with setup and cleanup. To address this issue, we propose ArtHub, a hybrid desktop and virtual reality application that allows anyone to upload their artwork to a virtual gallery that may then be explored by others. It makes use of the Unity game engine and is compatible with the Meta Quest 2 headset. In order to allow different people to view each other's work, it features a remote database that users may save their artwork to. Galleries are associated with a passcode to prevent different galleries from interfering. Unlike physical galleries ArtHub may be accessed from anywhere, requires little logistical setup, and is infinitely expandable. Our application will help support young artists in schools who otherwise may not have had the chance to show their work to a wider audience.

Art, Virtual Reality, Education, Gallery