Augmented Reality for Disseminating Cultural and Historical Heritage at Cemitério dos Prazeres

• Autor(a) principal: Martinez Lopez, Giovanna de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/139563
• topic: Augmented Reality; Mobile Application; Cemetery; Culture; History; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Eletrónica e Informática

Interest in cultural and historical places like cemeteries has been growing in recent times. That is most noticeable in cemeteries that were built in historical periods and have famous personalities buried there, as these locations have become tourist attractions in the cities to which they belong. Therefore, Lisbon Urban Data Laboratory (LxDataLab), in collaboration with the Lisbon City Hall, proposed the challenge "Inovação Aplicada à divulgação do património histórico cemiterial" intending to disseminate the cultural and historical heritage of Cemitério dos Prazeres in an innovative manner. This dissertation arises to address this challenge. Cemitério dos Prazeres is considered an open sky museum due to its rich cultural and historical content. This cemetery was built in the 19th century in Lisbon, and it is here that several famous personalities from Portugal are or have been buried. It is known for its large, adorned mausoleums, sculptures, and monuments from renowned architects from the 19th century. This cemetery receives several visitors that want to explore and learn more about it. Multiple museums integrate numerous technologies to make their visits more engaging and informative. The same can be done in Cemitério dos Prazeres as it is considered a museum. However, it can not be forgotten that it is a place of bereavement and must be respected. To show all that Cemitério dos Prazeres has to offer its visitors, we developed a prototype of a mobile augmented reality application. The prototype allows visitors to get to know the cemetery at their own pace. It provides a map that indicates which points in the cemetery should be visited. Each of those points of interest contains information about the people buried at that location. Using augmented reality, users can see those points in a way that the naked eye cannot. When visitors find one of these points of interest, the prototype augments it with digital content that can be a combination of images, videos, audios, and 3D items, enhancing the visitor’s experience at the cemetery. We conducted tests with users to evaluate the usability of this prototype and assess if it fulfilled its main objectives.