AUGMENTED REALITY

FOR CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS

Written by: Foteini Valeonti (ID: 95461809)

Contact: valeonti@gmail.com
0030 6978201863
0044 7552760383
Date: September 2010
Supervisor: Dr. Mark Ingham
Course: MA Interactive Digital Media
Ravensbourne College 2009-2010
London, UK
ABSTRACT
This is a report for the project The Augmented Reality Suite for Cultural Institutions
[ARS:CI] and its accompanying research. ARS:CI is a software suite comprising of
three Apple iPhone applications that take advantage of Augmented Reality to
enhance the learning experience in the museum context. The potential of Augmented
Reality for cultural heritage institutions has been the subject of research for over a
decade, however ARS:CI is one of the first projects, which aims at the development
of an Augmented Reality solution for museums and galleries that does not include
custom-made or expensive hardware, such as Ultra-PCs, but instead takes
advantage of the smartphones on the market. The research methods followed were
mainly desktop research as well as interviews with professionals coming from the
cultural heritage sector. During the software development process user-testing was
involved to retrieve feedback from the users, combined with desktop research on
techniques that would optimise the performance of the applications. The study proved
that despite the large amount of research in the area of augmented reality for
museums, there is only a minority of sustainable solutions, which was eventually
appropriated for permanent exhibitions, mainly because of the cost of purchasing and
maintaining the designed Augmented Reality systems. The feedback ARS:CI
received was positive and professionals with a background in the Cultural Heritage
sector as well as Augmented Reality specialists, found in it great potential, as a tool
that is able to transform the learning process in a compelling experience.

Keywords
Augmented Reality, Learning, Museum, Cultural Heritage, Mobile, Apple iPhone

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CONTENTS
Recapitulation 26
Abstract 2
Keywords 2
Deployment of the ARS:CI 27
Framework 27
Introduction 4 Platform (Apple iPhone) 27
How to Read 5 Augmented Reality Techniques 28
Methodology 5 Marker Tracking 28
Personal Motivation 6 QR Barcodes 29
The ARS:CI 7 Software Libraries 29
Description of the ARS:CI 7 ARToolkit Professional for iPhone Beta 2.0 29
Application 1: Authart 8 ZXing 1.5 30
Description 8 Deployment 30
Audience 8 Reflection 31
Importance 9 Feedback on the ARS:CI 31
Application 2: Unscene 9 Authart 32
Description 9 Unscene 32
Audience 9 Artour 32
Importance 10 Future Work 33
Application 3: Artour 10
Description 10
Bibliography 34
Audience 11
Importance 11
Recapitulation 12
Augmented Reality 13
Definition 13
Terminology 14
Emergence of the Augmented Reality 14
Augmented Reality Systems 15
Mobile Augmented Reality Systems 16
Recapitulation 17
Augmented Reality for Museums 18
Overview 18
Remarkable Augmented Reality projects for Museums 19
2001 – The Virtual Dig 20
2005 – Virtual Showcase 21
2007 – Mixed Reality Museum for the Antikythera Mechanism 22
2008 – An Augmented Reality Museum Guide 23
2009 – Mixed Reality at the National History Museum 25
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 1 The first audio tour was Stedelijk Museumʼs Short-Wave Ambulatory
INTRODUCTION Lectures invented in 1952. The audio stream was delivered through a
closed-circuit short-wave radio broadcasting system, in which the
amplified audio output of an analog playback tape recorder served as
a broadcast station, and transmition was via loop aerial fixed around
The first visitor electronic technology used in a museum was a handheld device the gallery or galleries (Tallon and Walker, 2009).
invented in 19521. The developers then, like the developers today, were drawn by its
potential to mediate an experience individually controllable by each visitor which
content was rich and personal to them, available at any time and suited to learning
styles not served by a catalogue, text panel or label. The Stedelijk Museumʼs Short-
Wave Ambulatory Lectures (Picture 1), though, barely delivered its potential, as the
analogue technologies of the 1950s did not have the capacity to fulfill this vision.
Developments in hardware, content creation, and functionality have since enabled
ever more powerful handheld guides to deliver better on the mediumʼs unique
potential. From its origin, as an analogue radio tour at the Stedelijk Museum, through
its use by over three million North Americans as a Sony Walkman-style taped tour of
the eight-stop “Treasures of Tutankhamen” exhibitions2 in the late 1970s, to its
incorporation as a direct-access digital guide to the Louvreʼs permanent collection in
19933, handheld technology is today an established companion of the modern Picture 1 Stedelijk Museumʼs Short-Wave Ambulatory Lectures
(Source: Loic Talon www.flickr.com/LoicT)
museum either as an audio or a multimedia tour-guide (Tallon and Walker, 2009).
2 The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition tour featured artefacts
At the same time, the emergence of the Augmented Reality in recent years, a from Tutankhamunʼs tomb and ran from 1972 to 1979. This exhibition
technology that achieves the augmentation of digital information on the real world was first shown in London at the British Museum from March 30 until
environment, combined with the progress made in the field of mobile computing, led September 30, 1972. The exhibition moved on to many other
to the development of mobile Augmented Reality systems. When used for an countries, including the USA, USSR, Japan, France, Canada, and
West Germany. The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the U.S.
exhibition, such systems can be the ideal handheld companion for the museum
exhibition, which ran from November 17, 1976, through April 15, 1979.
visitor. They allow the user to see the real-world environment of the museum More than eight million attended (Wikipedia, 2010).
augmented with additional information, which could be either two or three-
dimensional graphics, enhancing the learning experience without dragging the userʼs 3 In 1993 Acoustiguide company revolutionized the medium, with the
attention from the actual exhibit to nearby illustrations or screen media. Specialised introduction of the world's first digital wand player at the Louvre, in
Paris. It allowed 'random access' tours for the first time. No longer did
as it sounds, a complete mobile Augmented Reality system is as common as the
listeners have to follow a linear tour along a predetermined route. Now
Apple iPhone; hence Augmented Reality nowadays is much closer than everyone they could pick and choose the objects they wanted to learn about,
thought. This document is an extended research on Augmented Reality that led to the and go at their own pace. (Acoustiguide Audio Tour, 2010)
design and implementation of a cost-effective Augmented Reality handheld
companion, which enhances the learning process in the museum context.

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How to Read

This report could be read as a whole, as a documentation of a prototype Augmented

Reality project for museums and galleries and its accompanying research, but it
could also be read partially. The chapters “Augmented Reality” and “Augmented
Reality for Museums” are autonomous research documents that could be studied
alone from whom it may interest. In addition a reader who is interested in the ARS:CI
software suite could read the chapters “The ARS:CI” and “The Deployment of
ARS:CI” in that sequence. This document covers a description of the ARS:CI in the
homonym chapter, an analysis of the augmented reality technology in “Augmented
Reality”, a research of ARS:CIʼs context in the chapter “Augmented Reality for Picture 1 LinkedIn Logo
Cultural Institutions”, an explanation of the technical details of the deployment
process of ARS:CI in “Deployment of ARS:CI” and also a critique to the project in
the paragraph Reflection of the same chapter. “Future Work” contains the steps 1 Linkedin is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in
that will be followed regarding ARS:CIʼs progress and also my personal goals as a December 2002 and launched in May 2003,[2] it is mainly used for
new media professional and researcher from now on. professional networking. As of 9 August 2010, LinkedIn had more
than 75 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries
and territories worldwide (Wikipedia, 2010) Visit: www.linkedin.com
! This sign wherever it appears, indicates that there is a relevant video 2 Emerging Museum Professionals is a social network for museum
available at: http://valeonti.com/?p=531 professionals and hobbyist worldwide build on the NING platform.
Visit: EmergingMuseumProfessionals.ning.com

3 Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service, owned and

Methodology
The research method utilised in this report is mainly desktop research. Since the
subject of study is on Augmented Reality and mobile computers, a field that
evolves with high rates, but also deals with computing, hence most, if not all, of
the research related to it, is either published directly, or referred in the internet,
made the world wide web the ideal medium to use. Significant tools for my study
are the research networks Linkedin1, Emerging Museum Professionals2, and most
of all the Twitter3. This service allowed me to “follow” world-known pioneers of the
new media for cultural institutions in their day-to-day research and practise. The
three services mentioned above also contributed significantly to the promotion of
my personal writings, particularly to the online publication of my research
“Augmented Reality for Museums” by the online journal MuseumMedia4.
operated by Twitter Inc. that enables its users to send and read other
users' messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to
140 characters displayed on the author's profile page (Wikipedia,
2010). Visit: www.twitter.com
4 My research “Augmented Reality for Museums” was published on
th
May 12 , 2010 in MuseumMedia.nl and it can be found at:
http://museummedia.nl/case-studies/case-study-34-research-
augmented-reality-for-museums/

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Regarding the development process of the ARS:CI, user testing was involved as
well as interviews with professional interface designers to improve the user-
interaction of the software. In addition during the software development, the Apple
iPhone SDK Forum1 was essential, as it is for every other Objective-C
programmer.
1 The iPhone Development Forum can be accessed only by
Registered Apple Developers. It is available at:
https://devforums.apple.com/community/iphone
2 2009 BSc Diploma Computer Science, Informatics dept. of
University of Piraeus, Greece

Personal Motivation
3 An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is any computer system that
provides direct customized instruction or feedback to students, i.e.
New media is a powerful tool able to offer compelling experiences; hence it is without the intervention of human beings, whilst performing a task,
successfully appropriated from a plethora of industries, such as entertainment and thus ITS implements the theory of learning by doing (Wikipedia,
advertising. New media has also been used for more moral goals, such as education, 2010).
and that was the main drive that inspired me to work on the subject of learning-
focused new media applications for museums. A folk quote says, “Education is our
wealth” and growing up myself in a traditional education system I found it hard to gain
knowledge, to earn my wealth. Later when studying Computer Science2 I learnt for
the Intelligent Tutoring Systems3, which main purpose is to take advantage of
Informatics to achieve learning in more interesting and less stressful ways compared
to the traditional education system. In my masters studies I focused more on the field
of design and on subjects such as Interaction Design, a study that aims to design the
behaviour of a system so that is attractive to its users, offering an engaging
experience (Wikipedia, 2010). After some research on new media for museums, I
realised a well-designed learning experience can be as fun as a game (Picture 1). I
felt that this was the subject I should follow, once I realised that if I made good use of Picture 1 “the learning experience can be as fun as a game” Clues to
the power of the new media I was able to ease, make more attractive and less boring be gathered, mysteries to be solved and rewards to be shared, in the
something as important as the learning process in a cultural heritage institution. Apart learning-focused game “Ghosts of a Chance” which ran in the
from my studies, museums were spaces that have always filled me with awe, Smithsonian American Art Museum from July 18 through October 25,
because of their aesthetical adequacy I would realise later. 2008. The related publication for that game is available at:
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/goodlander/goodlander.ht
ml
The subject of my thesis for the MA Interactive Digital Media course in Ravensbourne Fo
College 2009-2010 connected the dots for me, combining my technical background
from my bachelors studies, my interest in design, which I developed in my masters,
my immanent interest in museums and a moral goal to work towards.

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www.valeonti.com