UbitourAR: A ubiquitous tourism model based on augmented reality

Authors

  • Daniel Perazzoni da Silva Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
  • Cristiano André da Costa Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
  • Rodrigo da Rosa Righi Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos
  • Humberto Moura Costa Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4013/jacr.2014.41.03

Abstract

Nowadays, Brazil has an expected growth in the tourism sector due to the FIFA World Cup (which had a huge success) and the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. However, there is a lack of tourism applications for Brazil, such as Electronic Tourism Guides (ETGs) for mobile devices. The existence of ETGs that takes into account real world environment is still very rare. By taking into account this scenario, this article presents a ubiquitous tourism model based on augmented reality. The proposed architecture, which is called UbitourAR, takes into account the context awareness focusing on localization-based services allied with user profile and restrictions. This article describes the development of UbitourAR enabling users to interact with the real world environment using augmented reality when visiting a place or point of interest (POI). In order to evaluate the model we had taken two approaches. Firstly, we evaluated the ontology proposed using scenarios. Secondly, we evaluated the usability in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and user satisfaction. For doing that, we developed a mobile application for the Caminhos de Pedra itinerary, in Bento Gonçalves, Brazil. The proposed model extends the previous work of Ubitour by adding augmented reality. The results of the tests showed a user acceptance higher than 80%, which encourages the research in augmented reality allied with ubiquitous tourism.

Keywords: augmented reality, Web Semantics, ubiquitous tourism, ubiquitous computing, mobile computing.

Downloads

Published

2015-04-29

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2014): Jan-Jun

Section

Articles

License

I grant the Journal of Applied Computing Research the first publication of my article, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license (which allows sharing of work, recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal).

I confirm that my article is not being submitted to another publication and has not been published in its entirely on another journal. I take full responsibility for its originality and I will also claim responsibility for charges from claims by third parties concerning the authorship of the article.

I also agree that the manuscript will be submitted according to the journal’s publication rules described above.