Cultural heritage visits supported on visitors' preferences and mobile devices

Monuments, museums and cities are great places to feel and experience neat and interesting things. But cultural heritage is experienced differently by different visitors. The more erudite may know beforehand what they intend to explore, while the least literate usually know and are capable of expressing some of their preferences but do not exactly realize what to see and explore. This paper proposes the use of a mobile application to set an itinerary where you can move at your own pace and, at the same time, have all the complementary information you need about each of the points of interest. The application is designed in face of an adaptive user interface where the routing and augmented reality are connected to acknowledge the needs of different user categories, such as elders, kids, experts or general usersPortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [UID/EEA/50009/2013, UID/SOC/04020/2013]CRESC ALGARVE 2020, PORTUGAL 2020 [3322]FEDER European Commissioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mobile five senses augmented reality system: technology acceptance study

The application of the most recent technologies is fundamental to add value to tourism experiences, as well as in other economic sectors. Mobile Five Senses Augmented Reality (M5SAR) system is a mobile guide instrument for cultural, historical, and museum events. In order to realize the proclaimed five senses, the system has two main modules: a (i) mobile application which deals mainly with the senses of sight and hearing, using for that the mobile device camera to recognize and track on-the-fly (museum's) objects and give related information about them; and a (ii) portable device capable of enhancing the augmented reality (AR) experience to the full five senses through the stimulus of touch, taste, and smell, by associating itself to the users' smartphone or tablet. This paper briefly presents the system's architecture but, the main focus is on the analysis of the users' acceptance for this technology, namely the AR (software) application, and its integration with the (hardware) device to achieve the five senses AR. Results show that social influence, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions are the key constructs that drive the users to accept and M5SAR's technology.Funding Agency Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Laboratory of Robotics and Engineering Systems, LARSyS UID/EEA/50009/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Arts and Communication Research Center, CIAC UID/Multi/04019/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-Being, CinTurs UID/SOC/04020/2019 Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Project: Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics, CEFAGE UID/ECO/04007/2019 Project M5SAR I&DT - CRESC ALGARVE2020 3322 PORTUGAL2020 European Union (EU) Instituto de Salud Carlos IIIinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Smart augmented reality application for enhanced museum experience

Dissertação de mestrado, Engenharia Eléctrica e Electrónica, Instituto Superior de Engenharia, Universidade do Algarve, 2017Museums’ collections can be almost endless, with countless objects, making it challenging to choose which ones to visit and appreciate. When a user enters a museum he usually encounters a guide or a predefined route to aid him, which more often than not is not suitable for his necessities and preferences. This dissertation focus on developing a mobile augmented reality framework and intelligent multiplatform application, that can be used as a museum guide and navigation helper. The work was divided into 3 main modules: (a) an intelligent routing system, (b) an adaptive user interface, and (c) an image recognition and augmented reality framework. Also presented is the integration of the above modules in an application. The first module, (a) intelligent routing system module, poses a solution for a "typical" museum problem. Museums routes do not take into account the physical, moral or psychological limitations of a user and/or their preferences. It resembles the traveling salesman problem where a route is calculated, only visiting once each point of interest, diminishing as much as possible the "walking" time, and extending the time spent admiring the museum’s objects. An Ant Colony Optimization algorithm was used to handle the calculations and compute an optimal walk, rendering the user’s preferences and limitations. This problem was formulated as a multi-criteria optimization problem. Also focusing on adapting the application for the user, (b) an adaptive user interface was developed, which adapts the application’s user interface on-thefly, according to the user’s preferences and conditions. This module is built upon a modular card system which is divided into structure and contents. It relies on a modular system in the sense that a complex interface can be divided into simpler and more manageable sub-modules, which can be used in other parts of the application or even in a completely different one. On an ideal application, each user would have a distinct interface/structure and contents. Nonetheless, different users could share the same interface structure only modifying the contents. The adaptive user interface is capable of (as the name implies) adapting itself to the user, either by changing both its structure and contents or only the contents displayed to the user. Regarding the augmented reality module (c), a mobile image recognition and tracking framework (MIRAR) was developed. The purpose of this framework is to recognize and track the innumerous objects of the museum in a mobile device. This framework is a marker-based augmented reality framework and even though the recognition happens on the client (mobile device) a server is required to keep the packaged markers accessible for the clients. These markers are preprocessed in the server and grouped by section. As the user navigates through the museum, an indoor beacon location system calculates his current position that is transmitted to the server which, in turn, sends the correct markers for that section to the mobile device. Finally, the integration of the above modules is presented in an alpha version of a mobile application, as well as tests and results for each module.Os espólios dos museus contêm inúmeros objetos, tornando-se difícil escolher quais as obras a visitar e apreciar. Quando um utilizador entra num museu, geralmente depara-se com um guia e/ou rotas predefinidas, que frequentemente não são adequadas às suas necessidades e preferências. Esta dissertação foca o desenvolvimento de uma framework de realidade aumentada e de uma aplicação inteligente para multiplataforma, que pode ser usada como guia de museu e auxiliar de navegação. O trabalho foi dividido em 3 módulos principais: (a) um sistema de cálculo de rotas inteligentes, (b) uma interface adaptativa de utilizador e (c) uma framework de reconhecimento de imagens com realidade aumentada. Também é apresentada a integração dos módulos acima mencionados numa aplicação. O primeiro módulo, o (a) módulo do sistema de cálculo de rotas inteligentes, representa uma solução para um problema "comum" dos museus: as rotas existentes nos museus não tomam em consideração as limitações físicas, morais ou psicológicas do utilizador e/ou suas preferências. O problema em causa consiste em calcular uma rota, visitando uma e só uma vez cada ponto de interesse existente (mas não necessariamente todos os disponíveis no museu), percorrendo o menor caminho possível, e estendendo ao máximo o tempo de visita aos objetos do museu. Neste caso, foi usada uma adaptação de um algoritmo de Ant Colony Optimization para calcular o melhor caminho, considerando as preferências e limitações do utilizador. Este problema foi formulado como um problema de otimização multi-critério. Ainda nesta temática, (b) foi desenvolvida uma interface adaptativa de utilizador, que se ajusta de acordo com as preferências e condições deste. Este módulo é constituído por um sistema modular de cartões os quais são dividido em estrutura e conteúdos. Foi escolhido este sistema pois permite que uma interface complexa possa ser dividida em sub-módulos mais simples, que podem ser usados noutras partes da aplicação ou mesmo noutra aplicação completamente distinta. Idealmente, cada utilizador teria uma interface com estrutura e conteúdos distintos. No entanto, diferentes utilizadores podem partilhar a mesma estrutura/layout apenas modificando o conteúdo apresentado. Assim, este modulo permite criar facilmente diferentes interfaces para os diferentes utilizadores, quer modificando apenas os conteúdos apresentados ou também toda a sua estrutura. Relativamente ao módulo de realidade aumentada (c), foi desenvolvido uma framework de reconhecimento de imagens com realidade aumentada (MIRAR - Mobile Image Recognition and Augmented Reality) para dispositivos móveis. O objetivo deste módulo é reconhecer e fazer o restreamento dos objetos do museu recorrendo ao dispositivo móvel do utilizador. A framework desenvolvida é baseada no reconhecimento de marcadores e apesar deste acontecer no cliente (dispositivo móvel) é necessário um servidor para guardar os marcadores préprocessados. Estes são, posteriormente, acedidos pelos dispositivos móveis à medida que os utilizadores navegam pelo museu. A localização do utilizador dentro do é calculada através de um sistema de beacons bluetooth a qual é transmitida para o servidor, que, por sua vez, envia os marcadores correspondentes a essa localização para o dispositivo do utilizador. Finalmente, a integração dos módulos supra-mencionados é apresentada numa versão alfa da aplicação móvel, bem como testes e resultados para cada módulo

VR Technologies in Cultural Heritage

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on VR Technologies in Cultural Heritage, VRTCH 2018, held in Brasov, Romania in May 2018. The 13 revised full papers along with the 5 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 21 submissions. The papers of this volume are organized in topical sections on data acquisition and modelling, visualization methods / audio, sensors and actuators, data management, restoration and digitization, cultural tourism

Context-Based Cultural Visits

Over the last two decades, there have been tremendous advances in mobile technologies, which have increased the interest in studying and developing mobile augmented reality systems, especially in the field of Cultural Heritage. Nowadays, people rely even more on smartphones, for example, when visiting a new city to search for information about monuments and landmarks, and the visitor expects precise and tailored information to his needs. Therefore, researchers started to investigate innovative approaches for presenting and suggesting digital content related to cultural and historical places around the city, incorporating contextual information about the visitor and his needs. This document presents a novel mobile augmented reality application, NearHeritage, that was developed within the scope of the master's thesis on Electrical and Computers Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of Porto University (FEUP), in collaboration with INESC TEC. The research carried out was focused on the importance of utilising modern technologies to assist the visitors in finding and exploring Cultural Heritage. In this way, it is provided not only the nearby points-of-interest of a city but also detailed information about each POI. The solution presented uses built-in sensors and hardware of Android devices and takes advantage of various APIs (Foursquare API, Google Maps API and IntelContextSensing) to retrieve information about the landmarks and the visitor context. Also, these are crucial hardware components for implementing the full potential of augmented reality tools to create innovative contents that increase the overall user experience. All the experiments were conducted in Porto, Portugal, and the final results showcase that the concept of a MAR application can improve the user experience in discovering and learning more about Cultural Heritage around the world, creating an interactive, enjoyable and unforgettable adventure

A mobile tour guide app for sustainable tourism

Portugal has had a flourishing tourism sector for the past few years. In fact, Portugal’s tourism boom has made the industry one of the biggest contributors to the national economy and the largest employer. In the year 2019, Portugal had a total of 27 million tourists, surpassing once again the record established in the previous year. However, tourism also brings a series of unintended negative side effects, such as overcrowding. The Santa Maria Maior historic district in Lisbon is being particularly affected by this problem. The work undertaken in this dissertation is part of the Sustainable Tourism Crowding project, that aims to mitigate the overcrowding phenomenon in this district, by fostering a balanced distribution of visitors while promoting the visitation of sustainable points of interest. This dissertation focuses on developing a mobile app prototype targeted at tourists, through which these sustainable walking tour recommendations can be delivered. To validate the functional requirements of the prototype, more specifically the trip creation process, a series of unit tests, integration tests, and manual tests were developed. To evaluate the usability of the prototype, a user-centered approach was adopted during the design stage, in which two usability techniques were conducted with members of ISCTE’s research center ISTAR and partners from the Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior, that guided and validated the decisions made. The achieved prototype contains mechanisms for measuring tourists’ adherence to the recommended tours using the Dynamic Time Warping algorithm, which raises new research opportunities on tourists’ behaviour.O desenvolvimento próspero do setor turístico em Portugal nos últimos anos fez da indústria um dos maiores contribuintes para a economia nacional e o maior empregador do país. No ano de 2019, Portugal recebeu um total de 27 milhões de turistas, ultrapassando uma vez mais uma vez o recorde estabelecido no ano anterior. No entanto, o turismo traz também uma série de efeitos secundários negativos não intencionais, tais como overcrowding. A freguesia histórica de Santa Maria Maior em Lisboa está a ser particularmente afetada por este problema. O trabalho desenvolvido nesta dissertação faz parte do projeto de pesquisa Sustainable Tourism Crowding, que visa mitigar o fenómeno de overcrowding nesta freguesia, promovendo uma distribuição equilibrada dos visitantes e incentivando a visita de pontos de interesse sustentáveis. Esta dissertação foca-se no desenvolvimento de uma aplicação móvel protótipo destinada a turistas, através do qual recebem recomendações de visitas sustentáveis. Para validar os requisitos funcionais do protótipo, mais especificamente o processo de criação de visitas, foram desenvolvidos testes unitários, testes de integração, e testes manuais. Para avaliar a usabilidade do protótipo, foi adotada uma abordagem centrada no utilizador durante a fase de conceção, em que foram utilizadas duas técnicas de usabilidade em parceria com o ISTAR (centro de investigação do ISCTE) e com a Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior, cujos resultados guiaram e validaram as decisões tomadas. O protótipo desenvolvido contém mecanismos para medir a aderência dos turistas às recomendações sugeridas através do algoritmo Dynamic Time Warping, proporcionando novas oportunidades de pesquisa nesta área

VR Technologies in Cultural Heritage

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on VR Technologies in Cultural Heritage, VRTCH 2018, held in Brasov, Romania in May 2018. The 13 revised full papers along with the 5 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 21 submissions. The papers of this volume are organized in topical sections on data acquisition and modelling, visualization methods / audio, sensors and actuators, data management, restoration and digitization, cultural tourism

Ambient Information Visualisation and Visitors' Technology Acceptance of Mixed Reality in Museums

The visualisation of historical information and storytelling in museums is a crucial process for transferring knowledge by directly and simplistically engaging the museum audience. Until recently, technological limitations meant museums were limited to 2D and 3D screen-based information displays. However, advancements in Mixed reality (MR) devices permit the propagation of a virtual overlay that amalgamates both real-world and virtual environments into a single spectrum. These holographical devices project a 3D space around the user which can be augmented with virtual artefacts, thus potentially changing the traditional museum visitor experience. Few research studies focus on utilising this virtual space to generate objects that do not visually inhibit or distract the operator. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce the Ambient Information Visualisation Concept (AIVC) as a new form of storytelling, which can enhance the communication and interactivity between museum visitors and exhibits by measuring and sustaining an optimum spatial environment around the user. Furthermore, this paper investigates the perceptual influences of AIVC on the users’ level of engagement in the museum. This research paper utilises the Microsoft HoloLens, which is one of the most cutting-edge imagining technologies available to date, in order to deploy the AIVC in a historical storytelling scene ‘The Battle’ in the Egyptian department at The Manchester Museum. This research further seeks to measure the user acceptance of the MR prototype by adopting the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The operational approaches investigated in this study include; personal innovativeness (PI), enjoyment (ENJ), usefulness (USF), ease of use (EOU) and willingness of future use (WFU). The population sampling methodology utilised 47 participants from the museum’s daily visitors. Results of this research indicate that the willingness of future usage construct is the primary outcome of this study, followed by the usefulness factor. Further findings conclude that the majority of users found this technology highly engaging and easy to use. The combination of the proposed system and AIVC in museum storytelling has extensive applications in museums, galleries and cultural heritage places to enhance the visitor experience. Keywords: Mixed Reality; Storytelling; Visitor Acceptance; Museum; HMDs; Ambient information visualisation; Microsoft HoloLen

Interactive exploration of historic information via gesture recognition

Developers of interactive exhibits often struggle to �nd appropriate input devices that enable intuitive control, permitting the visitors to engage e�ectively with the content. Recently motion sensing input devices like the Microsoft Kinect or Panasonic D-Imager have become available enabling gesture based control of computer systems. These devices present an attractive input device for exhibits since the user can interact with their hands and they are not required to physically touch any part of the system. In this thesis we investigate techniques to enable the raw data coming from these types of devices to be used to control an interactive exhibit. Object recognition and tracking techniques are used to analyse the user's hand where movement and clicks are processed. To show the e�ectiveness of the techniques the gesture system is used to control an interactive system designed to inform the public about iconic buildings in the centre of Norwich, UK. We evaluate two methods of making selections in the test environment. At the time of experimentation the technologies were relatively new to the image processing environment. As a result of the research presented in this thesis, the techniques and methods used have been detailed and published [3] at the VSMM (Virtual Systems and Multimedia 2012) conference with the intention of further forwarding the area