Abstract:
Sri Lanka is well-known for its rich cultural heritage and is a place with numerous ancient archaeological sites that attract both local and international visitors. However, traditional methods such as photographs, guided tours, and informational signage often fail to provide an immersive and engaging experience. Furthermore, environmental conditions and increasing demand for tourism continue to threaten the physical preservation of these historical sites. Our study presents the development of an Extended Reality (XR)-based mobile application aimed to enhance the exploration and understanding of Sri Lankan heritage sites through immersive Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences. The application digitally reconstructs the selected heritage sites to their original states, enabling users to visualize the ancient structures on top of existing ruins. The application uses Unity 3D and Niantic Lightship platforms for location-based AR, which overcomes the limitation of marker-based methods commonly used in similar applications. Furthermore, a fully immersive VR experience was developed using the Google Cardboard SDK, providing users with a virtual tour of reconstructed environments. An AI-powered chatbot was integrated to improve user interaction and provide site-specific historical information. The prototype was implemented and tested at Lloyd’s Signal Tower in Galle Fort, where black box testing was conducted with local and foreign visitors. The performance of the application including, latency, model accuracy, and user experience was evaluated. This study contributes by utilizing location-based AR instead of marker-based AR, using a mobile device as the VR platform instead of requiring an additional device, and integrating both AR and VR features within the same application along with an AI chatbot. This offers a scalable solution to enhance Sri Lanka's cultural heritage and tourism industry. Future work will focus on expanding site coverage and conducting comparative studies with existing heritage applications.
