CultureCam: An interactive search tool for small image galleries

As a result of digitization initiatives in recent years, most galleries hold digital copies of their masterpieces. In order to attract more visitors, public galleries are interested in advertising their content on websites and tourist-centric applications deployed in public spaces. The online version of CultureCam has the goal of stimulating the reuse of cultural heritage content by creative designers. In this paper, we present the Interactive Installation version of CultureCam tool, which has the goal of attracting the interest of public users when exploring public galleries. It concentrates on enhancing the user experience, by offering access to the images in an immersive environment, using an intuitive, easy-to-use tool that supports touch free interaction with the gallery content. A novel image similarity search algorithm was developed in order to adapt to user expectations when searching in small image datasets. The user feedback collected from exhibitions in different European cities indicates a very high acceptance of the CultureCam tool by the public. The intuitive and seamless interaction with the tool, as well as the automation and enhancement of the search algorithm are the main improvements over the previous version of CultureCam.