Augmented reality for archaeological environments on mobile devices: A novel open framework

The wide availability of networked mobile devices provides a reliable platform for the development of the so-called communication engine for museums and cultural tourism. This research presents and discusses a novel open framework, which can be employed to augment the visitor’s experience and present targeted information in a personalised audio-visual interactive manner on users’ personal mobile devices. The proposed approach employs state of the art augmented-reality technologies enabling users to sample the information through the use of their personal mobile devices. Instead of using tagging systems such as visible quick response (QR) markers, users are directed to 1) stand on specific appropriately marked information points, 2) scan the area with their appropriately configured mobile device, and 3) access specific geographical or artefact-based ontologies that may include digitally restored buildings in 3D, audio-visual information on specific artefacts and/or other information of interest with directions to access other information points. The proposed framework may be employed at varying levels of complexity, enabling the development of archaeological edutainment scenarios and games. The use of the proposed technology has multiple advantages, such as: 1) highly-specialised hardware is not required, 2) devices can function in both open and closed spaces, 3) the quality of presentation adapts according to the device used, and 4) further information may be accessed as full interaction is supported. In this paper we review the literature and present technologies and related research that may be employed for the presentation of archaeological information. We also describe the proposed open framework, followed by a presentation of a sample application, --Additional uses are proposed in our conclusions. © 2014 MAA Printed in Greece. All rights reserved.