A 3D audio augmented reality system for a cultural heritage management and fruition

One of the main features of the physical environment in which humans live is spatial dimensionality. When we think about 3D, we usually refer to 3D video, even if it is not the only existing channel of natural interaction. On the contrary, related work in the field of 3D audio mainly refers to the investigation of acoustic effects by adding reverberation in the context of virtual 3D environments. In this paper, we present an interaction system based on spatialized sounds. We developed an innovative cloud application in the cultural heritage context; a personal guide, in 3D sound, attracting the tourists' attention toward monuments or buildings, offering sound scapes of augmented reality. The designed system interacts with smart headphones that remotely takes the orientation of the listener's head and properly generates an audio output, which also takes into account the listener's position and orientation in the environment. Thus, such innovative headphones using an inertial measurement unit for determining the orientation of user's head have been designed and developed in open-ear mode, in order to locate the user in the real context.