Initial Design and Features of an Augmented Reality System for Urban Park Touring and Management
International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering (IJCTE, ISSN: 1793-8201), Vol. 12, Num. 5, Oct 2020
2020
Journal
- Contact persons: Harry Nakos , Yannis Stavrakas
- Relevant research project: VR-Park
Abstract.
Urban parks and open green areas are important attractions of environmental interest to city
residents and visitors. Careful and well-targeted promotion of these areas, not only enhances the
importance of their existence in the urban space, but at the same time can assist in the development of
alternative forms of “green tourism”, and towards the direction of environmental awareness among
citizens, which is particularly important nowadays and crucial for the future of the planet. New
technologies are a key tool in enhancing the experience of touring urban parks, as they can make the
tour much more attractive, highlighting interesting information about the flora and fauna of the park, as
well as various other points of interest. At the same time, they can help guide the visitor inside relatively
large parks, and easily identify his/her paths, thus highlighting areas of the park that would otherwise
be neglected. They can also assist park managers in organizing events, thus solving one of the key
operating problems mainly of large-scale urban parks, which is the failure to exploit their entire site due
to reduced or problematic accessibility. This paper presents the initial design methodology and the
main features of an integrated system that comprises an augmented reality mobile application for
visitors of urban parks, and a corresponding park management web application for the managers of
such park. Through the mobile app, an attractive, interactive touring environment will be created which
will highlight the environmental and historical interest of those sites. At the same time, the web
application will receive multimedia data from the users and will automatically collect anonymous data
that may be useful to park managers to improve the visitors’ touring experience and to better highlight
the advantages of visiting such parks.