Augmented Reality for the Presentation of Cultural Heritage: On-Site Application and Evaluation of a Model

Abstract

This paper comes out of a scientific study concerning development of an AR model for the presentation the archaeological site of Alexandria Troas for the visitor experience, and on-site application of this model, through a case, namely the Podium (or Forum) Temple, to investigate the nature of that experience provided by AR and its implications as well. The study is established upon the proposition that “AR is tailored to fit to provide a compatible, accessible, and sustainable presentation of historical built environments and archeological sites to public experience, while respecting much of the problem(atics) coming along with norms and privileges of historical heritage preservation and conservation.” Departing from this ultimate proposition, it sets out a framework of questions to address. This paper provides a summary of the whole research, followed by the detailed description of the methodology and process concerning the developed model’s on-site application, and a succinct presentation of its findings, finally, an account of the research as a means of testing the research questions. Findings confirm much of the assumptions deriving from the initial proposition and showed the great potential of AR towards this end as expected. A number of issues and problems were surfaced as well, some of which are oriented from the technologies concerning the AR itself, while others are related to the limitations of the proposed model and its on-site execution. Furthermore, the research indicated a number of matters to address and possible ways to expand such research. All in all, we argue that the research yielded a number of valuable results and insights in addressing the departing problem situation, while it also posed new questions and research paths to follow for new research.