# Augmented Reality in Heritage Apps:Current Trends in Europe
## 2 Heritage Education, APPs and Augmented Reality
With respect to the use of AR in heritage contexts, useful studies have hailed from Spain [29], Italy [17; 30], Greece [31; 32], the Czech Republic [33], Taiwan [26; 34], Korea [35; 36], and Malaysia [37]. It should not be forgotten that many of these initiatives resulted from the first AR and VR projects funded by the European Union at the beginning of the 2000s, such as Lifeplus [38], Archeoguide [39], Itacitus [17], and Ancient Pompeii [37; 38]. Recent research shows that these tools can lead to visitors better understanding cultural heritage [35]. When used as a guide, they can offer content customization [8], which enables substantially more engagement and interaction with heritage than other tools can provide [25; 29]. Similarly, visitors tend to find these tools to be more interesting, fun, and immersive [26]. There is no doubt that this is appealing, as is clearly demonstrated by previous research [40]. But AR has much more to offer: it can enable spaces, buildings, and monuments that no longer exist to be recreated [6; 9; 41]; it can allow for an object to be viewed in its entirety or in part without the possibility of an object suffering any damage [26; 31; 42]; it can provide a touristic route enhanced with superimposed information that elucidates places of interest [31; 43]; it can provide visitors with a virtual tour guide [31]; and it can even contain games in which AR superimposes actions on reality [25; 31]. Given these possibilities, one of the fields that can benefit the most from the use of mobile technology is archeology. Those working in this field have already anticipated that VR and AR would play a prominent role in public outreach and education [3]. The possibility of recreating objects or spaces that no longer exist for visitors at sites or heritage presentation areas was the driving motivation for taking up digital devices imbued with this type of technology. Technology has progressively changed and advanced so as to enable access to AR, which can be activated in some apps by scanning QR codes or other user markers [7; 22; 33] (see Figure 1), while in others, this is done through activating GPS [22; 31]. Other devices such as Google Glasses [11] and other types of goggles have also been used for this purpose--though these run into greater limitations since they constitute yet another costly gadget that users must obtain. Finally, we must stress that currently it is quite difficult to make scientifically supported judgments about the use of apps and AR in heritage education. On the one hand, the rapid pace at which digital technology continues to develop leads to constant changes and novelties. This makes it rather difficult to carry out a long-term study on the topic; when such studies are conducted, they cannot be totally uptodate [40]. In education, therefore, we find a series of major ongoing projects that are somewhat idiosyncratic and specific, because they are developed by private or local entities and do not form part of a broader action plan [18]. On the other hand, developing new software tools requires funding that in many cases is hard to come by, since such projects are very costly for many heritage institutions [16]. In other words, economic resources are a sine qua non for the development of a quality tool which isbased on clear educational goals and which can be changed and improved following theanalysis of results [18]. Furthermore, apps and AR also need to overcome technical difficulties, which is no small feat given that there are currently a wide variety of mobile devices with a range of screen sizes and processing powers. Such details often make it impossible to design apps that run on all devices and operating systems [30].