Outdoor handheld augmented reality system for historic site reconstruction

An outdoor handheld augmented reality system which can enhance the experience of visitors of the cultural heritage site was presented in this paper. This system implements augmented reality technology on a commercial PDA device to provide visitors the multimedia and augmented information. In this PDA-based AR system, Fourier-Mellin transform based 2D image registration algorithm is utilized to obtain visitors' viewpoint and client/server infrastructure is employed to reduce the computation burden of the PDA. Experimental test demonstrated the validity and practicability of our system. Compared with other mobile AR systems, this PDA-based AR system is more portable and can be successfully applied in the outdoor environment. The potential application field of this system will include tour guiding for museums and tourism, historic site reconstruction, mobile 3D game, e-commerce fields and so on.