Avebury Portal – A Location-Based Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt for Archaeological Sites.

Abstract

Many archaeological sites are less popular by visits amongst the younger group and overall less popular than majority of other heritage sites. They are often not enhanced by supporting medium like in museums or historic buildings. Many augmented reality (AR) systems have been developed for archaeological sites and proved to benefit user engagement. However, most result in superimposing a virtual reconstruction of the site for users to passively observe and lack exploration of other methods for designing an interactive engaging experience. In this paper, we demonstrate the development of a location-based treasure hunt AR app, Avebury Portal, for the heritage site; Avebury in England. Avebury Portal uses puzzles with the environment to give clues, and a narrative that responds to the user’s location. We developed Avebury Portal with Unity Engine and Vuforia to demonstrate the effectiveness of using AR to enhance visitors’ experiences on learning.