Stefan NIEDERMAIR / Peter FERSCHIN
(Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Architectural Sciences, Digital Architecture and Planning, Austria)

Outline: Due to the constantly increasing availability of smart phones and tablets containing the necessary technical infrastructure for augmented reality applications a framework suitable for visualizing archaeological content on such an interactive platform is of high interest and our main goal for implementing a prototype application. Beside the interactivity such a platform gives the possibility to customize the shown content (e.g. language) and to put the information (whether it is 2d or 3d) in the correct geographical position, which allows the display of archaeological information onsite.

Abstract: We will establish a prototype platform for onsite augmented reality visualizations that meet different levels of presentations. This applies to information like simple points of interest, displayed as overlay symbols above the perceived camera image. These displayed points of interests can be used as user interface to explain certain findings with texts and images. A more advanced presentation technique will be the implementation of complex 3d models that can be placed at the actual location of the archaeological site. To meet these requirements we will develop a framework using the Unity3d game engine, the Qualcomm AR SDK for Unity3d and a MySQL database that is customized to store the previously mentioned content. The Unity3d game engine is hereby used as the main development environment because of its high graphical 3d performance, the possibility to implement interactivity and multimedia content and the possibility to publish the final application to different platforms for smart phones and tablets (iOS and Android). By using a database in the background to provide the actual content for the application it will be easy to customize it and to keep the information up to date. Our prototype implementation will be focused on the location and content from Michaelerplatz in Vienna. However, the framework can be easily adjusted for different locations and different content by using a web-based database.

Keywords: Information Visualization, Augmented Reality, Archaeological Visualization, Location Based Services