AMUSEum: An Augmented Reality Mobile Application for Museums

Abstract

Mobile and software technologies provide great benefits in many areas. Every day, these technologies are used in different areas. In parallel with the developments of these technologies, habits and expectations from their everyday life of humans are changing. Traditionally, when a visitor visits a museum, it may take a brochure/headphone to be informed about the objects or a guide gives guidance to it. In all cases the visitor is passive. Namely, It cannot interact with the objects. Additionally, the guidance is limited with audio. Visitor experiences can be improve with using mobile augmented reality (AR). Augmented reality can be described as enhancing real-world objects with artificial objects such as voice, video or 3 dimensional drawings and interactions. It is possible to turn a smartphone into a museum guide with using augmented reality technology. AR is more than audio guidance. It is possible to develop interactive guidance applications with using AR. In this study, we present a case study on AR applications in museums.