Design and development issues for ARCHEOGUIDE: An Augmented Reality based cultural heritage on-site guide

In ARCHEOGUIDE (Augmented Reality based Cultural Heritage On-site GUIDE) is the acronym of a project pursued by a consortium of European organizations: Intracom S. A. (Greece), Fraunhofer Institute of Computer Graphics (IGD) (Germany), the Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV) (Germany), the Centro de Computacao Gráfica (CCG) (Portugal), A&C 2000 Srl (Italy), Post Reality S. A. (Greece) and the Hellenic Ministryof Culture (Greece). Funded by the EU IST framework (IST-1999-11306), the consortium is developing a system that will fundamentally change the way visitors view and learn about a cultural heritage site. In particular, we are designing and developing an Augmented Reality system that will allow the visitors to see computer-generated reconstruction of the site without cutting them off from the real surroundings of the site. As a first trial site, we have selected ancient Olympia in Greece, the famous birthplace of the Olympic games