Context-Based Cultural Visits

Abstract

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) systems have emerged and greatly evolved in the last two decades. They have application in many domains, most notably in the field of Cultural Heritage (CH) and tourism, where people tend to rely on smartphones when visiting a new city to obtain additional information on the city landmarks. Expectations are that they obtain precise and tailored information to the visitors needs. Therefore, researchers started to investigate innovative approaches for presenting and suggesting digital content related to cultural and historical places. This article presents a novel MAR application, NearHeritage, which uses emergent technologies to assist visitors in finding and exploring Cultural Heritage. The research focuses on combining the use of context-awareness with Augmented Reality (AR). By sensing the context surrounding the user, the NearHeritage app discloses not only the list of nearby points-of-interest (POI) but also detailed information about the POIs in the form of AR content adapted to the user context. The solution presented uses built-in sensors of Android devices and takes advantage of various APIs (Foursquare API, Google Maps API and IntelContextSensing SDK) to retrieve information about the landmarks and the visitor context. Results from initial experimentation indicate that the concept of a context-aware MAR application can improve the user experience in discovering and learning more about Cultural Heritage, creating an interactive, enjoyable and unforgettable adventure.