Virtual and augmented reality technologies have known an impressive market evolution due to their potential to provide immersive experiences. However, they still have significant difficulties to enable fully fledged, consumer-ready applications that can handle complex tasks such as multi-user collaboration or time-persistent experiences. In this context, CultReal is a rapid creation and deployment platform for augmented reality (AR), aiming to revitalize cultural spaces. The platform’s content management system stores a representation of the environment, together with a database of multimedia objects that can be associated with a location. The localization component fuses data from beacons and from video cameras, providing an accurate estimation of the position and orientation of the visitor’s smartphone. A mobile application running the localization component displays the augmented content, which is seamlessly integrated with the real world. The paper focuses on the series of steps required to compute the position and orientation of the user’s mobile device, providing a comprehensive evaluation with both virtual and real data. Pilot implementations of the system are also described in the paper, revealing the potential of the platform to enable rapid deployment in new cultural spaces. Offering these functionalities, CultReal will allow for the fast development of AR solutions in any location.

Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies have experienced a significant increase in popularity due to their potential to deliver a highly immersive user experience. However, there are still substantial difficulties in creating augmented environments with different purposes that can precisely localize users. In this context, TeachAR is an augmented reality solution designed to provide students with an interactive learning experience through an augmented reality quest system. The system comprises a desktop application and a mobile application, designed for three distinct user roles: building administrators, teachers, and students. Administrators use the desktop application to upload the building’s architectural plans, create a 3D replica of it, and define a navigation graph. Then, using the mobile application, the correspondence between the real building and its replica is created. Teachers employ a simple desktop user interface to design interactive quests. Students interact with the system through the mobile application in three different use cases: free exploration of the building, guided navigation to reach a destination, and individual or collaborative quests proposed by teachers. This paper provides a brief overview of the system’s main functionalities, implementation details, and evaluation of its technical capabilities. The pilot testing is also described in this paper, revealing the potential of using the TeachAR system in schools in the educational process.