Inside AR Application - Bringing Art Closer to Citizens by Promoting the Use of Smartphones and Tablets

Abstract

This paper describes the design, development and testing of an augmented reality application for smartphones and tablets that has the main objective of bringing art closer to citizens. The application makes use of an automated recognition and tracking system to identify the paintings being aimed at with the camera and overlaps digital images obtained by means of different technologies (infrared, THz, ultraviolet, X-rays, etc.) in order to unveil some details hidden beneath the outer layers of the painting. The overlapping fits perfectly on top of the original painting thanks to the registration process and it helps to go deeper into the knowledge of the artwork. Once the painting is recognised, the user can access information related to the author, chronology and history as well as additional insights provided by art experts and not commonly included in the guides, contributing to making art more appealing. Furthermore, the developed application includes also audio guides to facilitate the access to art for users with visual impairments, concentrating a great amount of different functionalities into one single device.