eGuide
The eGuide is an electronic medium for entering and visualizing information. It is often offered as a sales aid (e.g. in the automotive trade or in the IT industry as a decision-making aid for hardware investments, for example). An eGuide is a software development developed by art historians. This is used as a kind of navigation by tourists in an extensive outdoor monument . The system runs on small handheld computers, so-called PDAs , which can receive GPS signals. Visitors can explore the monument on their own routes, are navigated to sights of their choice via GPS and can obtain multimedia information on specific locations via pictures and audio texts. The depth and density of information are staggered and individually selectable by the visitors. The eGuide was developed for the medieval Kaiserpfalz Ingelheim and has been in operation there since April 2007 and can be borrowed from the museum at the Kaiserpfalz . The area is 250 × 300 m in size and is now almost completely overbuilt by modern roads and residential developments.
Possible areas of application for the eGuide
The eGuide has been specially developed for archaeological monuments that are largely invisible. Here the problem often arises that essential monument areas are located below the surface of the earth. Modern development contributes to the fact that the original overall context of larger monument areas is not accessible to the visitors and that orientation is difficult. In addition, the eGuide is particularly suitable for monuments for which there is complex information, as comprehensive and complex information can be well portioned and data can be stored in the system in an almost unlimited amount.
Reasons for developing the eGuide system
The overbuilding of the former Palatinate area in Ingelheim am Rhein has meant that the monument has become largely "invisible" to tourists today, as spatial connections are no longer visually recognizable. In addition, there is also a lack of orientation for visitors in the city quarter. Thanks to several years of interdisciplinary research, a very high density of information about the building history, the relationships between the individual components, the importance of the imperial palace Ingelheim in the Middle Ages and also about the history of the Nieder-Ingelheim district was gained.
Project partner
The idea, concept, structure and content come from the Kaiserpfalz Ingelheim research center. The technical implementation ( software and hardware ) was carried out by eyeled GmbH, Saarbrücken. Prof. Dr. Antonio Krüger and his colleagues at the Institute for Geoinformatics at the University of Münster developed the pedestrian navigation. The audio texts were produced by Schröder AV-Medien OHG in Osterholz-Scharmbeck.
How the eGuide works
The eGuide Kaiserpfalz Ingelheim combines the two basic functions of visitor navigation and information.
The navigation and the provision of site-specific content were implemented using GPS. A test carried out before the final decision was made showed that the area of the Imperial Palatinate consistently enables good reception of the satellite signals despite the sometimes narrow buildings. The problem of the so far relatively high inaccuracy with GPS was counteracted with the combination of appropriate hardware, software and specially prepared map material. The visitor sees his current location on an overview map. Targeted navigation is possible from any location to any of the 18 monument stations. You get an auditory route description to the destination as well as a graphic representation of the route on the display.
Information through multimedia content
There is information on each circular route station in the form of audio texts and a picture gallery. Each user can choose the access himself. The audio texts are staggered: Basic information, additional information and archaeological information are available for the individual circular route stations. All audio texts are accompanied by picture sequences. With this structure, each user can decide individually and adapted to his or her previous knowledge and time budget, how deeply he would like to delve into each topic. In addition to the images from the audio texts, the image galleries contain additional images. They are particularly suitable for making the invisible visible: photos of architectural details that are difficult or impossible to see from the visitor's point of view, historical photos, images of found objects, plans and reconstruction drawings and, above all, photos of the archaeological excavations, the foundations and Remnants of the wall unearthed, which have since disappeared under an asphalt cover. The particularly clear and user-friendly interfaces of the eGuide were awarded the Saarland State Prize for Design in November 2007.
software
The software consists of two components combined with one another: The basis is standard software for multimedia visitor guidance systems. It can be flexibly populated with images, audio files and films. Coupled to this is a hitherto unique navigation component that was specially developed for pedestrians.
literature
- Holger Grewe and Britta Schulze: eGuide - a mobile information system with GPS navigation for the presentation of monuments. Report on the system development using the example of the imperial palace Ingelheim, Baden-Baden . In: Michael Mangold and Peter Weibel and Julie Woletz (eds.): From viewer to designer: New media in museums - strategies, examples and perspectives for education . Nomos, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8329-3104-9 , pp. 133-145 .