Applying augmented reality to preserving industrial heritage

Preserving cultural heritage of industrial sites has become a political issue in Australia and elsewhere with the closure of many manufacturing and engineering based industries, the needed modernization of existing industrial sites and the spread of housing development into areas that have traditionally been preserved for industrial use. The size of these sites makes it difficult to preserve them and the preservation of most cultural heritage becomes partial, such as displaying industrial machinery in parks well away from their original position and context. Australia is losing much of its important industrial cultural heritage. Newcastle, Australia, is the sixth largest city in Australia and is the largest coal export port in the world. Its entire history of European settlement, since 1801, was built on industry. Its history is a cycle of booms and busts with a constantly changing industrial landscape. The paper examines an alternative and holistic method of preserving the cultural heritage of industrial sites, which would otherwise has been lost, using augmented reality and mobile technologies. The city of Newcastle is presented as a case study.