XR for heritage museums, in plain terms
What the technologies are, how they help preservation, and what a realistic first pilot looks like at your readiness level.
What is XR?
Extended Reality is a family of technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds in different amounts.
Augmented Reality
Adds digital information on top of the real world, usually through a phone or tablet camera.
Point a phone at a gallery case and a 3D artifact appears beside it.
Mixed Reality
Digital objects interact with your real space. They can hide behind furniture or respond to walls.
A digital statue stands in the room and you can walk around it.
Virtual Reality
A fully digital environment, usually through a headset. Everything you see is computer-generated.
Walk through a building that was demolished decades ago.
Four ways XR supports preservation
Make the invisible visible
Reconstruct lost structures or past events on the spot where they happened.
Teach without risk
Let visitors handle fragile artifacts digitally, with no wear on the originals.
Document and preserve
Create digital twins of endangered sites through 3D scanning and photogrammetry.
Connect wider audiences
Reach people who cannot travel to the site or cannot access it physically.
A first pilot for each readiness level
Pick your level from the wizard or flowchart. Each plan starts small and builds on what you already do.
Examples from the field
Two projects featured in the APT 2025 presentation.
The Alamo augmented experience
1M+Additional visitors a year were projected for an AR experience that lets people explore centuries of history through sound and visuals, even while parts of the site are under restoration.
Cleveland Museum of Art, ArtLens
76%Of visitors said the interactive experience, which reveals the stories behind artworks, made their museum visit more enjoyable and meaningful.
Figures as reported by the institutions and cited in the APT 2025 presentation.