HABANAPP: HAVANA’S ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE A CLICK AWAY

The research treats the application of technologies related with augmented and virtual reality to architectural and historical context in the city of Havana, Cuba, on the basis of historical studies and Range-Imaging techniques on buildings bordering old city’s five main squares. The specific aim is to transfer all of the data received thanks to the most recent mobiles apps about Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual reality (VR), in order to give birth to an innovative App never seen before in Cuba. The "Oficina del Historiador de la ciudad de La Habana", institution supervising architectural and cultural asset in Cuba, is widely interested in the topic in order to develop a new educational, cultural and artistic tool to be used both online and offline.Augmented reality apps introduce themselves as a tool of intersection between history and memory. Augmented reality mixes images from the real world with other kinds of data (in this case historical pictures, 1D/2D and 3D, drawings, etc.). The main purpose is to create a tool generating an continuous experience in which digital objects seems to take on a life on its own. This illusion’s not easy to maintain especially in a context like Old Havana’s one, where GPS devices are still not that accurate and the urban texture is various and stratified, it can lead to imprecise data bouncing and so point’s choice is essential. Augmented reality can generate a combination of physical world’s vision and digital representation with a simple click. Future research are developing in this way, investigating on new functionalities to valorize such a beautiful heritage like Cuban one.