Sebastian Buks presented on using augmented reality and mobile technologies to enhance cultural heritage experiences. He discussed projects combining augmented reality with museums and archaeological sites to visualize historical artifacts and structures. Evaluations found the "wow factor" of augmented reality experiences but also usability issues. Buks suggested designing smartphone applications with points of interest connected to 3D models of historical structures to create immersive historical walking tours and games. He concluded augmented reality, when combined with storytelling and game-based learning, shows promise for cultural heritage but design of user-friendly interfaces remains a challenge.

1. Virtual Heritage:
combining the past with
modern technology
Sebastian Buks
Dohi Sweden
Lund University
sebastian@dohi.se
@sebbuks

2. Who am I?
• Former student at Scandinavia's largest
university: Lund University
• 46 000 students
• Eight faculties
(I was a student at the Faculty of Engineering)
• Started my own business in 2010 and recently
joined forces with Dohi Sweden
• 25 enthusiasts located in Umeå, Stockholm and Malmö
• Software/Hardware
• Mobile development, Internet-TV solutions, Games, Consultants
...and more

3. Who am I?
• Representing Ph. D. Mattias Wallergård
(He was my supervisor for my master’s thesis)
• Multidisciplinary research group at Lund University
Investigates:
- the use and impact of digital technologies in the cultural heritage
domain
- how “time travels” can be used to enhance our perception of past
and future
- V-Must partner (FP7 NoE)
• Representing my own and
Dohi Sweden’s research in the field

4. Scope of presentation
• Statistics and background
• Give an overview of our work on using
Augmented Reality in the context of cultural
heritage / State-of-the-art
• Focus on mobile and communication aspects
• Demonstration

5. Some numbers...
• There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that's 77 percent of the world
population). Growth is led by China and India.
• Total shipments of smartphones in 2010 were 302.6 million units up 74.4
percent from 2009.This makes smartphones 21.8 percent of all handsets
shipped (about 50% in western countries).
• By 2015, 631 million smartphones will be sold.
• The number of people accessing the mobile Internet is growing fast and is
expected to overtake the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web
within five years.
• Accessing maps and directions is the no. 1 mobile activity, followed by social
networking, accessing local information and reading news. Playing games
comes in at no. 5 just behind music.

6. Virtual Heritage &
Game-based learning
• Virtual heritage is a term used to describe works
dealing with information and communication
technologies and cultural heritage.
• Game-based learning: type of games that deals with
applications that have defined learning outcomes.
Often combined with storylines etc.
• So:VH+GBL = ways in which technology,
interactivity, or cultural conventions of computer
gaming can help afford the cultural understanding
of the self, of the past, or of others with mindsets
quite different to our own.

7. What is Augmented Reality?
Digital data + Reality =
Augmented Reality (AR)

8. What is Augmented Reality?
• Used in TV/Sports
• Military
• Navigation
• Movies etc.
•Two main types:
• Marker based (Reference point is an image e.g.)
• Position based (Reference point is GPS-coord. e.g. Layar anyone?)

9. What is Augmented Reality?
Marker based:
•Very accurate, results in a high reality feeling.
• Needs a marker
• Depending on light condition, hard to recognize the
marker
Position based:
• Not as accurate, results in a poor reality feeling
• Needs no marker, just a GPS signal.
• Not possible inside (without extra equipment), only
outdoors
Pros and cons:

10. Projects

11. Case study (1/3)
Augmented Reality inside
Lund University Historical Museum
The Barbaricum exhibition: findings from the iron age city of Uppåkra

12. Case study (1/3)
Questions:
• Possible to combine a
storytelling approach
with Augmented Reality?
• Usability issues?

13. Case study (1/3)

14. Case study (1/3)
Usability evaluation results:
• ”Wow factor” due the unique experience
• Initial difficulties understanding
• Request for more data/content

15. Case study (2/3)
Augmented Reality at the
Uppåkra excavation site
No reconstruction will be
built...
...pretty uninteresting
for every non-archeologist

16. Case study (2/3)
Question:
What possibilities are there
with smartphone AR in
regards to:
• 3D visualization?
• storytelling?

17. Case study (2/3)
Work in progress...

18. Case study (2/3)

19. Case study (3/3)
Augmented Reality for historical
city walks in Malmö
• Collaboration withVirtual Historical Models
• 3D model of Malmö year 1692 in high detail
(based on thousands of documents from a 1692 military stocktaking)
•About 1000 buildings

20. Case study (3/3)
• Possible to create a mobile experience based on
the 3D material from Malmö 1692?
• How to design the interaction between the user
and the content?
• How to create a unified experience combining
the mobile application with museum activities?

21. Case study (3/3)
AR like experience:
• Points of interest (POI) with
3D models connected to them
•The game development tool
Unity and high-quality sensor-
based tracking (e.g. iPad 2)
• Making Malmö museum a
POI

22. Conclusions
•Augmented Reality, storytelling and GBL is a promising
combination
• Crucial to design user interfaces with high usability due
to the novelty of the AR medium
• Points of interest in combination with 3D models open
up new possibilities
• Considering smartphone availability and computation
power we should see a lot more of this, starting with
casual games and moving on to ???

23. Demonstration

24. Contact
Feel free to contact me with any questions, I’ll be around
until Friday morning.Thank you!
sebastian@dohi.se
+46 739 47 58 14
Twitter: @sebbuks
http://www.dohi.se