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An outdoors Augmented Reality application for Android featuring a cultural route through the Old Town of Chania

Panou Christos

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Summary

In this thesis we present a mobile augmented reality application for cultural heritage sites in the Old town of Chania. The main focus of this work is to provide a means for the 3D on-site visualization and reconstruction of historical buildings in their past state for consumer grade mobile phones. In this application we feature three monuments, the ‘Giali Tzamisi’, an Ottoman mosque in the old harbor of Chania, the demolished Towers at the south side of the ‘Byzantine Walls’ and the ‘Saint Rocco’ Venetian chapel. Advances in mobile technology have brought Augmented Reality to the wider public by utilizing the camera, GPS and inertial sensors present in modern smartphones. Upon visiting these monuments a virtual reconstruction is matched to the user's positions and viewing angle displaying the monument in its past state while moving and exploring the area. Position tracking is performed either by utilizing the phone’s GPS or with a combination of the computer vision capabilities of the chosen AR framework and our sensor implementation. A location aware experience was designed and integrated to ensure that the information is delivered not only on functional but on usability criteria as well. Apart from the 3D reconstructions the users have access to information about various monuments throughout the city. The monuments are categorized in key Historical periods of Crete and the users are urged to explore and classify them to unlock the historical information while earning more points for themselves. The application provides a map which can be used to navigate between the spatially distributed content as well as interact with them to get directions and visit their page. The application connects to a remote database that will allow the users to document their visits as well as store data about the city concerning visit frequency, most liked monuments etc. By combining AR technologies with location aware and social aspects we aim to enhance user experience and interaction with cultural heritage sites and showcase the cultural depth of the city of Chania

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