Trajan's Forum visitors can try augmented reality glasses

(ANSA) - Rome, October 14 - The Museum of the Imperial Forums in Trajan's Market on Wednesday introduced a new app as part of an experimental two-month project called Glass Beacon Museum, which will allow visitors to experience the museum interactively through the use of augmented reality visors. Through the project, Constantine, Trajan, Mars and Venus tell their stories first-hand, and the marbles suddenly come to life, bringing the visitor into a new dimension where he or she can experience, rather than just see, their history, their anecdotes, and other curiosities. This unique and immersive visit is possible only at the Museum of the Imperial Forums in Trajan's Market in Rome, thanks to the experimental project "Glass Beacon Museum: The Museum of the Future". No longer audioguides to activate in front of a work, but rather glasses of the latest technology that locate the visitor within the museum and, based on his or her position, automatically supply a wealth of information that goes well beyond the description of what they're admiring. In fact, the beacons - low-frequency Bluetooth nodes - allow the visitor to be located, and the augmented reality visors on the glasses integrate the components of a computer or a smartphone for visualizing images, video, and 3D animations that regard the cultural heritage on display in the museum. This experience is possible for two months beginning Wednesday and was made possible thanks to the Region of Lazio's "Future Culture" grant, open to young creatives and aimed at the realization of a hardware or software product with cross-media characteristics for innovative enjoyment of content and cultural events. The versatility of the collection and the monumental itineraries in the Museum of the Imperial Forums in Trajan's Market offered fertile ground for storytelling and interaction with the urban landscape. The augmented reality virtual itinerary is made up of 14 different points of interest located between the first and second floors and two external points, one on the first terrace and the other on Via della Torre.
"There's no protection (of cultural heritage) if one doesn't have the capacity to involve different types of public in getting to know the heritage of our museum system," said Rome Superintendent for Cultural Heritage Claudio Parisi Presicce, at Wednesday's presentation of the experimental project. Rome's Councillor for Culture Giovanna Marinelli said, "Today we're speaking of the future because we're using technologies to widen enjoyment, to increase value, and to create continuity in the new generations". "This year we've counted 89,000 visits to the Museum of the Imperial Forums in Trajan's Market compared to 78,000 in all of 2014". "This is a high example, as will be the colouring of the Ara Pacis in the coming months, in which the scientific base melds with the capacity of technology to improve and simplify the enjoyment of places as complex as archaeological sites".