Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Overview of open source augmented reality toolkit

Augmented reality or also known as AR is not a new technology. The technology has existed for almost 40 years ago after Ivan Sutherland introduced the first virtual reality (VR) application. At that time, works and research were mainly concerned to establish the hardware aspects of the technology. The head-mounted display (HMD) or some might called head-worn display is the result of augmented reality research and also one of the fundamental equipment for accessing the technology. As time goes by, the augmented reality technology has begin to mature to a point where the hardware cost and capabilities have collided to deliver a more feasible AR thus enable the rapid development of AR applications in many fields including education. To create a non-commercial AR application specifically for education, the ARToolkit can be taken into consideration. ARToolkit is the product of AR community and it is registered under the GNU General Public License. The user is provided with basic source code that lets the user easily develop Augmented Reality applications. Despite the fact that AR is not a new technology, people may unaware or unfamiliar with its existence. Therefore this paper is intended to (1) give an overview of augmented reality; and provides (2) solution to the technical problems that one’s will face in setting up open-source augmented reality toolkit

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

Low vision can have an exceptionally negative impact on a student’s ability to learn, especially when subjected to the conventional education system. In this environment, students are expected to adhere to a lecture that delivers most information visually via a whiteboard or a projector screen. The goal of this project is to create a customizable application for a smartphone that implements selective processing in order to make it easier for visually impaired students to engage with and learn from lectures. Specifically, this application is written in the Java language for the Android platform. The application uses OpenGL ES, a C-like language for the mobile platform, in order to perform image processing. Filters written in OpenGL ES are used to modify the image read by the phone’s camera. Using these filters, the application can modify an image by stretching, magnifying, and enhancing the color and contrast. The specific processes included in the application include Sobel Edge Detection, Dilation, Zoom and Contrast. Hardware acceleration is also performed using OpenGL ES. A direct consequence of this project is solving a problem in the classroom for visually impaired students not yet addressed by current technologies. While this project needs further development to substantially help students with severe peripheral vision, it was successful in implementing the desired augmentation and can serve as a foundation for future usability improvements

Implementation of a Java Framework for Marker Based Detection in Augmented Reality

Due to the drastic increase in powerful hardware in mobile devices, it has become possible to move Augmented Reality applications from desktop systems to their mobile counterparts, thus also opening a wide range of new uses and possibilities. To allow fast development of mobile Augmented Reality applications, we propose and implement a framework that handles the heavy lifting. This paper describes the path from design to implementation of an augmented reality framework for the mobile Android platform. The goal is a framework for marker-based tracking and corresponding rendering of three dimensional objects, to be usable in any application for Android. The framework, called Imagine, will utilize OpenCV for Android for the image processing to detect markers and OpenGL ES 2.0 to render the corresponding 3D objects. The finished framework is also analyzed for possible improvements and corrections

Design and Implementation of a GPS Guidance System for Agricultural Tractors Using Augmented Reality Technology

Current commercial tractor guidance systems present to the driver information to perform agricultural tasks in the best way. This information generally includes a treated zones map referenced to the tractor’s position. Unlike actual guidance systems where the tractor driver must mentally associate treated zone maps and the plot layout, this paper presents a guidance system that using Augmented Reality (AR) technology, allows the tractor driver to see the real plot though eye monitor glasses with the treated zones in a different color. The paper includes a description of the system hardware and software, a real test done with image captures seen by the tractor driver, and a discussion predicting that the historical evolution of guidance systems could involve the use of AR technology in the agricultural guidance and monitoring systems

A Mobile Authoring Tool for AR Content Generation Using Images as Annotations

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that allows the superimposition of virtual objects onto the real world environment. Various fields, such as education, medicine, and architecture, have started adapting AR technology. However, developing AR applications, along with their contents, requires a specific skillset, which limits the number of AR-based applications that can be developed. Various authoring tools are available for desktop systems to ease the development of AR applications and content, yet only few attempts have been made to develop these kinds of tools for mobile systems. This paper describes a mobile application that allows users to author content for AR viewing using 2D images. Furthermore, the tool allows users to produce and to edit AR content on the spot. After the application was developed, a usability test was conducted with eight teachers in order to assess the difficulty of using the application. The user testing showed that the application developed was generally easy to use, and that further addition of features can improve the application

Simulation of Solar System using Augmented Reality

The use of visual aids in learning process has been proven to be very useful and effective in helping the students understand and memorise the topic that learned. Most of the topics learned by the students in Science subject are most affected by the help of visual aids including the topic about the Solar System. However, the existing learning aids for the Solar System topics has many limitations that hindered the students from understanding the lesson better such as still images, only in 2D visualisations and so on. The main objective of this project is to produce an accurate simulation of the solar system using the augmented technology environment. Augmented reality is used to superimpose digitally a computer generated graphics, images or animations onto the real world environment. With augmented reality technology, the simulation can be projected in 3D visualization and by implementing animations in the simulation, the students can see for themselves the actual movements and rotations of the planets in the solar system. Moreover, the students are able to manipulate the camera position in order to view the simulation from various angles. With the simulation, the student can learn, understand, and memorise the topic easily and interactively

An augmented reality interface for visualising and interacting with virtual content

In this paper, a novel AR interface is proposed that provides generic solutions to the tasks involved in augmenting simultaneously different types of virtual information and processing of tracking data for natural interaction. Participants within the system can experience a real-time mixture of 3D objects, static video, images, textual information and 3D sound with the real environment. The userfriendly AR interface can achieve maximum interaction using simple but effective forms of collaboration based on the combinations of humancomputer interaction techniques. To prove the feasibility of the interface, the use of indoor AR techniques are employed to construct innovative applications and demonstrate examples from heritage to learning systems. Finally, an initial evaluation of the AR interface including some initial results is presented