The augmented reality application stemmed from the idea of enabling historical images to be layered with actual experiences and aimed at creating an interaction between the present and the past. For this purpose, it challenged its users to retake historical pictures and to match the original as good as possible. 

The test case focussed on a set of historical images from the City Archive of Leuven taken between 1839 and 1939. These photographs had been digitized during the EuropeanaPhotography project and exhibited, among other photographs, in the photography exposition “All Our Yesterdays” that took place from the 1st of February to the 15th of March 2015 in Leuven. They have also been added to the Europeana repository.

The aim was to develop an algorithm that would match the old photographs of the City Archive with the same places of Leuven today. The algorithm would then be integrated in a simple app that allows users to point their phone-cameras to determined places in Leuven and see the old images coming up, accompanied by historical background information and related stories and anecdotes.