Page 266 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015266technological development we are talking about 3D in both cases.The fact is that augmented reality is developing in different areas and sectors and cultural organ- isations are not unaware of its potential. Such is its development capacity that there is a forum, the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR),134 exclusively for discussing the many possibilities of its imple- mentation.As in the case of 3D technology, augmented reality is proving to be a very useful tool for research and education on heritage. For example, back in 2007, the abovementioned ISIS research group (Ingeniería de Sistemas Integrados135)of the department of Electronic Technology of the School of Telecommunications Engineers of Malaga University, began designing a map of Andalusia at the request of the Andalusian tourist board, so that users can interact. They began to incorporate facial recognition into the project to recognise movements intuitively, so that all users have to do is move their heads to interact with space.A later example is the Espacio Fundación Telefónica with the ArsVirtual project,136 which is very similar to what Microsoft did with CyArk, as examined above. The website shows the main monuments of Spain, Latin America and Morocco through virtual reality.A similar project is iTacitus,137 though it takes interactivity one step further. iTacitus is a European research project funded by the Sixth Framework Programme for information society technologies. The project began in Sep-tember 2006 and ended in July 2009. iTacitus developed an interactive itinerary planning tool that used contextual filtering based on users’ location, interests and history to ascertain what kind of augmented information to supply to potential visitors’ mobile devices.For more advanced features of what distinguish- es augmented reality from virtual reality or 3D technology, we would have to examine more modern examples. For example, Mar de Fons (Ocean swell)138 was an exhibition at Ca l’Are- nas, the art centre of the Museo de Mataró, and one of the pioneering shows in Spain in allowing visitors to consult further information on the painting on display using any mobile device thanks to image recognition with augmented reality which, in this case, also linked up with Wikipedia articles. In addition to viewing the works and additional information, visitors could interact with the works by using their mobile telephones. The app made it possible for works to be directly recognised, combining virtual elements onto a real context.Mar de fons exhibitionFocus 2015. Museums and New Technologies