Augmented reality experience: From high-resolution acquisition to real time augmented contents

This paper presents results of a research project "dUcale" that experiments ICT solutions for the museum of Palazzo Ducale (Urbino). In this project, the famed painting the "Città Ideale" becomes a case to exemplify a specific approach to the digital mediation of cultural heritage. An augmented reality (AR) mobile application, able to enhance the museum visit experience, is presented. The computing technologies involved in the project (websites, desktop and social applications, mobile software, and AR) constitute a persuasive environment for the artwork knowledge. The overall goal of our research is to provide to cultural institutions best practices efficiently on low budgets. Therefore, we present a low cost method for high-resolution acquisition of paintings; the image is used as a base in AR approach. The proposed methodology consists of an improved SIFT extractor for real time image. The other novelty of this work is the multipoint probabilistic layer. Experimental results demonstrated the robustness of the proposed approach with extensive use of the AR application in front of the "Città Ideale" painting. To prove the usability of the application and to ensure a good user experience, we also carried out several users tests in the real scenario.