Sharing the Past with the Public: Augmented Reality User Experience at Archaeological Site

APSAP (Ararat Plan Southeast Archaeological Project) Team and development team, Humen Chau and Ada Au wish to develop a tourist and AR navigation application.

Our project team developed a cross-platform mobile application that primarily focuses on leveraging AR to revolutionise ho visitors interact with archaeological sites and tourist attractions. The APSAP centers around the Vedi River Valley, which is the main site of interest for the initiative. All the data is geolocated accurately so that we can place waypoints precisely on the site. Through the application, the user can better understand and appreciate the cultural heritages in Armenia with an immersive experience.

This is a part of the ongoing APSAP Project supervised by Dr. Peter Cobb from the Faculty of Arts at HKU. That field project collects significant 3D data at an ancient site in the country of Armenia. They are also making interpreted reconstructions of the ruins of fortification walls and buildings at that site. They would like to share these reconstructions with tourists, schoolchildren, and other members of the public who visit the actual archaeological site in Armenia. They believe the best way to do this would be to use Augmented or Mixed Reality devices. In that way, the people visiting the site would see how the site looked thousands of years ago. They may also have video and audio tours from experts built into the device, which could be guided by GPS.