Running Reality for Historic Sites
See what can no longer be seen.
Engage visitors in your site's story. Help them see the buildings, meet the people, and explore the events that shaped the place where they're standing.
Visitors scan a QR code and see the scene on their own phone in seconds.
- Engage the next generation
- Bring vanished places to life
- No app to install or large download
Built around your site's needs
A visit that sparks curiosity.
You want visitors, especially younger audiences, to connect with your history. Staff time and interpretation budgets have to stretch across the whole site. Running Reality gives your team a shared platform for bringing more of that history to life.
Engage the next generation
Make the phone in a younger visitor's hand part of the visit. Exploring a historical scene and questioning its people gives them an active role in discovering your story.
Bring the whole site into the story
Help visitors understand vanished buildings, open landscapes, and scattered historical places. Extend interpretation along trails and between staffed stops, where a guide cannot always be present.
Make your budget go further
A shared platform spreads technology costs across sites and gives your team tools that are already built. Start with the historical content available, then add research and reconstructions in phases as funding allows.
History where it happened
Give visitors more to discover.
Make an empty landscape meaningful, introduce the people behind the events, and connect the stops across your site. Site access brings these premium features to your visitors.
WALK
Reveal the lost landscape
Use augmented reality to place reconstructed buildings, people, and events in their historical setting. Visitors walk around and point their device to explore what is no longer visible.
TALK
Meet the people of the past
Let visitors question digital historical reenactors and discover different perspectives. Sourced conversations give them a reason to look closer and follow the evidence behind a story.
GUIDE
Connect the places on a visit
Help visitors connect the places they walk through with the history that happened there. GUIDE supports exploring a real historic site through individual or site-sponsored access.
From classroom to field trip
Give teachers a reason to choose your site.
Make the connection to a specific learning objective clear. Your researched content can help teachers prepare students before a visit, investigate on location, and continue the discussion back in class.
Familiar historical content and tools let teachers build on their classroom preparation. Show what students can discover at your site and how the experience supports their curriculum, including Virginia's Standards of Learning.
Works at your site today
From QR code to history in seconds.
Visitors pull out their phone, scan a QR code, and see the historical scene. There is no app to install or large download to wait for. The experience is designed for visits where mobile coverage is limited. Start with the history already available, then add depth over time.
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Choose what to reveal
Start with a place, a person, or a moment that helps visitors understand your site. Review the historical content already available.
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Share it with visitors
Visitors scan your site's QR code or open its visitor link. The scene opens directly in their phone's browser, ready to explore.
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Add depth over time
Bring your sources and expertise. We can help add people, buildings, and events as research and funding allow. Explore content partnerships.
Historic Site
Sponsor a more engaging visit.
Sponsor premium features for all your site's visitors. Let them WALK through lost landscapes, TALK with people of the past, and use GUIDE to connect places across your site, on their own devices. Your subscription also gives visitors an ad-free experience.
Research and new content creation can be arranged separately.
$300.00 USD / yearTry site sponsorship free for 45 days. Set up site access, then share the visitor link. The trial starts when the visitor experience is opened.
A shared investment in local history
Let the story reach beyond your boundaries.
The history your site develops can enrich classroom learning, family visits, and the wider community. Partner with teachers and nearby businesses to connect more places and share the work of bringing that history to life.
The practical details.
Find the details that matter for your site.
A phone or tablet with a web browser. AR also requires a device with a camera, location, and motion sensors. Preview the experience on the devices and connections visitors will use. See how to get started with WALK.
Yes. Share your research and priorities, then add detail in phases. The work depends on existing content, available sources, and the level of reconstruction. Learn about content creation.
Historical content and reenactor conversations are backed by sources. Your expertise can help deepen the interpretation. Explore our citations, approach to 3D reconstruction, and reenactor guidelines.
GPS and compass readings vary, so reconstructed features may appear shifted. Use AR for interpretation while following real paths and site boundaries. Read the location accuracy guidance.
Choose which historical people and activities fit your visitors. Additional training dialog is COMING SOON to support training activities your site hosts, such as executive training, leadership development, or military officer staff rides. See the dialog options.
Yes. We can discuss your site's purchasing process and opportunities to fund additional research and content. Explore grant partnerships or contact the team.
No. Visitors can explore on a normal screen. Compatible cardboard viewers offer an optional stereo view. Learn about cardboard viewers.
Start with the story only your site can tell.
Tell us what you want visitors to discover. We can help you choose a useful first step.