Developing an AR application for self-exploration at the Roman Temple in Antiochia ad Cragum, Turkey.

This paper presents the a VR and an AR mobile applications, developed for the physical and remote self-navigation of the public at the NE Temple in Antiochia ad Cragum in Southern Turkey, built in the late 2nd/early 3rd c. CE. The goal of the applications is to demystify archaeological research and combat the public perception of non-discrete, unidentifiable remains in archaeological sites, as commonly summarized as “just stones”. The temple has collapsed due to an earthquake, but most of its building material survives on site, and it’s an excellent didactic example of Roman stone-cut temple architecture. The paper presents the methodology of digitally capturing in-situ building remains and a sample of disiecta membra using LiDAR scanning, digitally documenting it in 2D orthogonal state of preservation drawings, inferring their reconstruction, and putting it all together to build virtually the 3d model of the whole temple. creating a high-accuracy reconstruction model of the temple. In the second half, the paper explores the range of digital applications that can present this model and the research behind it, and gives preliminary results of testing these applications.