A Tour of Venetian Candia

Venetian Heraklion, known as Candia in 1640 AD, is enlivened through a virtual reality app. that allows the user (inhabitant, visitor, educator) to “travel” virtually in both time and space and to receive multifaceted and varied information, both in Greek and English.

The innovation of the project lies in the fact that the screen of the portable device (tablet or smartphone) turns into ‘a window’ in time. While the user moves within the old city of Heraklion, through specific routes, Venetian Candia unfolds before them. With the use of GPS, compass and gyroscope, the old city along with the monuments that still stand, or have another use today or have even been lost in time, come alive on the user’s screen. An “experiential” on site and real time guided tour in the historical centre of Heraklion, with the aid of new technologies and 3D photorealistic reconstructions along with texts, photos, narration, offer a variety of information about the city monuments and its sightseeing.

In case that the user is not within the limits of the old city, the application starts from the centre and with the joystick, shown at the bottom of the screen, they can wander around and get to know the city. They can also choose between the ground or “fly over” tour.

The user can choose between the English and Greek language, the font size, the altitude of the “fly over” view, minimum required GPS accuracy, the X, Y GPS offset, the field of view, the horizontal and the vertical angle offset etc. Thus the user is able to adapt the application to their own factors and choices.

Through forty (40) 3d representations of buildings and the urban tissue of the Venetian period, the user gets a complete – as much as is possible - picture of 1640 Venetian Candia, a little before the Ottoman siege, conquest and domination. The administrative city centre (around the “Lions’ fountain”), the imposing buildings - palaces and government buildings- the magnificent churches and monasteries, the port with the fortress and the arsenals, the fortification walls with the renaissance gates, the elaborate fountains and many other monuments, appear on the screen of the smart mobile devices composing the image of a capital city of Venetian Crete, at its peak.

Minimum device requirements:

- GPS

- Gyroscope

- 500Mb free space in sd card

- quad-core processor

ORGANIZATION: MUNICIPALITY of HERAKLION CRETE HELLAS

CONTRACTOR: PRISMA ELECTRONICA Industrial and Commercial S.A.

University of Crete, DIADRASIS – I. LADAS & Associates General Partnership, HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF CRETE

FUNDING BODY: OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME FOR CRETE & THE AEGEAN ISLANDS 2007 -2013