The city of Zurich: Using AR to visualise imaginary buildings in the real world.

During exploration work carried out on the building site of the Zurich Opéra car park, a series of archaeological finds came to light that were the remains of a prehistoric settlement of stilt houses. To satisfy the public’s keen interest in the discovery, the city of Zurich held a three-week exhibition in 2017, which used HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headsets to bring to life how archaeologists imagine the settlement might have looked. After the exhibit, the city ran a pilot project for a mobile phone/tablet app, with a view to making the experience more widely available, sustainable and cost-effective. Ergon’s AR team completed the project in collaboration with the Geographic Information Systems centre of competence in the city’s urban planning department.