Project promoter: LAG Hunsrück (Lead partner)

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Origin of the project / activity: The ARmob cooperation project involves six Rhineland-Palatinate LAGs and three Luxembourg LAGs and is carried out with the technical support of the Department of Archaeology from the University of Trier.

Describe your project / activity:  In order to visualize how today’s archeological sites and antique remains looked like during Roman and Celtic times, a new smartphone application will offer visitors an new type of experience to connect with the past. More than 105 archeological sites – predominantly in Rhineland-Palatinate but also in Luxembourg – are to be registered in the app by 2019. Thanks to the Augmented Reality technique, the visually reconstructed sites are integrated into the actual landscape and surroundings.

Specific details: The overall objective is to increase tourism attractiveness of the region. The specific goal of the project is to develop a digital application that can be downloaded for free on smartphones. The information is provided to the visitor in four languages: German, English, French, Dutch.

What is it about? This project is building upon a former major cooperation project called ‘Roads of the Romans’ (Straβen der Römer) developed since 2009. Similar strategies on cultural tourism are in place, seeking to develop creative and cost effective offers, not only in terms of entertainment but also for educational purposes. Augmented Reality (AR) offers the possibility to reconcile reality and computer graphics into a new, homogenous and realistic picture. The physical real-world environment is recorded in the ARmob device by a digital camera, then instantly superimposing computer-generated images, thus enhancing one’s current perception of reality. The 360-degree display opens insights from all directions from the viewer’s perspective.

What needs to be considered to reproduce the idea? To be transformed with the augmented reality technique, each archaeological object has a cost. This cost is determined by two distinct aspects: The degree of scientific research attached to archaeological findings for each property and the willingness or capacity of each municipality to financially contribute to the cost. The economic model adopted here relies upon a common understanding.