Reviving Aggersborg: Conveying lost heritage sites through indirect augmented reality

This paper propose a simple and user friendly method for aligning an Indirect Augmented Reality application with the real world. Augmented Reality is often considered an innovative platform for conveying cultural heritage, as well as for many other uses. In cases where an Augmented Reality system relies on the internal sensors of mobile devices for orientating its orientation, it will suffer from any inherent issues these sensors may have. An important aspect of Augmented Reality is the alignment with the real world, and since compass sensors of mobile devices are often unreliable, and gyroscopes generally do not have absolute information of real world directions, correct alignment can pose a substantial challenge. The method proposed in this paper, while simple in nature, is based on aligning a gyroscope by pointing it towards a known feature from a known position. The developed application was evaluated through user interaction, expert feedback, and the alignment method through a technical test. The interface was considered simple and intuitive, and the technical test demonstrated the proposed method as a viable way of aligning an Indirect Augmented Reality application to the real world.