Virtual tourism: development of Augmented Reality portal for Sarawak cultural village mobile application

Nowadays, the advancement of new interactive way presenting information to enhance the user experience in viewing Augmented Reality Portal in tourism. The best way to attract their interest not only by watching and reading the brochure but by adding interactive element into the application such as using 3D model visualization, which is to provide virtual world experience to users. The approach that is taken for this project is by creating the application interactively with the implementation of Augmented Reality Portal. The objective of this project are to identify the user requirements, design the interface and function and hence develop Augmented Reality Portal for Sarawak Cultural Village. For this project, the 3D model focuses on the village view which is Bidayuh Long House. The prototype of the project is executed on Android platform mobile devices. Target user is open to all tourists that interested in knowing the historical behind the Sarawak Cultural Village. The methodology that is used and applied in this project is Design Thinking Methodology that practice empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test phase. This methodology is suited and applicable to use as it provides a solution based approach to solving problems. For the 3D model view, users can experience different perspective of the village and feels the environment around as it feels like to be in the physical world of the village. In spite of the fact that the current applications have their own advantages, for further advancement, improvement are required so it can become a better application.