In an ideal world, physical museum artefacts could be touched, handled, examined and passed between interested viewers by hand. Unfortunately, this is not always possible – artefacts may be too fragile to handle or pass around, or groups of people with mutual interests in objects may not be in the same location. This can be problematic when attempting to explain or make sense of the physical properties of artefacts.

To address these problems, we propose that direct manipulation of 3D content based on real-world interaction metaphors can help collaborators (both co and remotely located) to construct personal and mutual physical and spatial awareness of artefacts, while networked communication and collaboration allow for ideas and knowledge to be exchanged and shared.

We present our interpretations from two studies of RelicPad, a tablet-based application that allows users to manually manipulate museum artefacts and to ‘point out’ areas of interest to each other using 3D annotations, facilitating a mutual awareness of spatial properties and referencing during discussion.