Augmented user experiences in the cultural heritage domain are in increasing
demand by the new digital native tourists of 21st century. In this paper, we propose a novel
solution that aims at assisting the visitor during an outdoor tour of a cultural site using the
unique first person perspective of wearable cameras. In particular, the approach exploits
computer vision techniques to retrieve the details by proposing a robust descriptor based on
the covariance of local features. Using a lightweight wearable board the solution can localize
the user with respect to the 3D point cloud of the historical landmark and provide him with
information about the details he is currently looking at. Experimental results validate the
method both in terms of accuracy and computational effort. Furthermore, user evaluation
based on real-world experiments shows that the proposal is deemed effective in enriching a
cultural experience.
