Augmented reality for cultural heritage - Comparing a cardboard device with a mobile handheld device in a museum setting

Abstract

There are different options to implement augmented reality (AR), which range from high-end expensive solutions, to cheap, less sophisticated, alternatives. Some of those cheap alternatives are a mobile phone or a cardboard-based solution. A mobile phone creates so-called handheld AR, where users point their device to a point of interest and the video on the screen is augmented with virtual 3D objects. A cardboard solution makes use of a mobile phone to project virtual images on a see-through mirror, showing the images in the real world. Both these options use a mobile phone, but they create different experiences. One is handheld and shows a video, whereas the other is head-worn and projects the images in the real world. However, there is no comparative evaluation between these two alternatives that shows the differences between them. The goal of this thesis is to identify and evaluate these differences in the context of cultural heritage and fi?nd the better suited device for that situation. Both AR solutions utilize a state-of-the-art mobile phone and are compared based on the visitor experience. A user study is conducted with the visitors of a museum in Utrecht: the Rietveld Schröder House, a cultural heritage site which is part of the UNESCO world heritage list. Two prototypes are implemented, one for each AR solution, and tested with 28 visitors of the Rietveld Schröder House during regular museum tours. Both implementations showed good results, but each has its own advantages. The results from a standardized questionnaire on visitor experience used after the experiment shows a preference for cardboard AR, whereas the observations during the test indicate that handheld AR might be easier and more intuitive to use.