In 1953 a devastating earthquake destroyed most buildings in the islands of Zakynthos and Kefallinia, in western Greece. The capital of Zakynthos used to be a charming town of Venetian architecture which was completely flattened after the earthquake. When the town was rebuilt later on, despite the fact that some effort was put in maintaining its old character, most of the old scenery, including unique architecture of the old mansions, the beautiful churches and the narrow streets was lost forever. However, modern augmented reality technology can help the visitors of the place to re-live this old Zakynthos town atmosphere and learn about the social and economic life of its people through a playful activity.
In 2010 the IT company “S O F A R” had this idea, to revive the old Venetian Zakynthos town, through a mixed reality application.
In the past years S O F A R invested on research towards the implementation of a mixed reality world. In recent years the "Zakynthos Chamber of commerce" got the funds for S O F A R to fulfill this project.
Finally in the mixed reality world of old Venetian Zakynthos town has been implemented. For the development of this world where a team of architects, historians and software developers came together. The result is the generation of a virtual world as large as 4 sqKml that includes 2000 buildings.
The mixed reality application FLashBack Zante facilitates the virtual reality world of the old Venetian Zakynthos town. The application uses the sensors of the mobile device so that it can track the location and the orientation of the user, making it possible to project the old world upon the real world. So the user, while using the application, can walk around the town of Zakynthos but when (s)he looks at a spot through the mobile screen (s)he can see how the place used to be in the past years.