Traveling in time and space with virtual and augmented reality

Traveling in time and space represents an old dream, which excited the imagination of numerous writers and artists. Virtual and augmented reality pushes this idea to a new level, and enable to achieve the first steps in this direction. In this paper we give an overview of several cultural heritage applications using virtual and augmented reality. We show the large diversity of applications, the new possibilities they offer, and finally, their potential in involving the user. Four exemplary applications "Virtual Stratigraphy", "the virtual Cathedral of Siena", "ArcheoGuide, an personalized AR-Guide" and the "AR-Telescope" are briefly presented. Then, the results, success factors as well as limitations are discussed. We conclude each statement by presenting new results of current research.