Where is ARCO's market? Many European cultural heritage archives of special scientific and cultural interest exist. If only museums in Europe are considered, the market for ARCO is extensive. These European and world-wide archives need to be preserved, studied and protected, while at the same time made available to scientists, archaeologists, curators, historians, and citizens world-wide for their enjoyment and learning. ARCO's main vision is to develop technology, systems and expertise to help museums create, manipulate, manage and present their cultural archives as virtual exhibitions over the Web.

What are ARCO's goals? ARCO is developing innovative technology for creating virtual representations of museum artefacts using a stereo photogrammetry system and user friendly software-Object Modeller. A 3D modelling tool is being developed to refine the virtual representations-Interactive Model Refinement and Rendering, Virtual representations are managed and organised into virtual exhibitions using an XML driven Object Relational Database and Content Management System. The presentation layout of the virtual exhibition is based on X-VRML templates, which define either a browser VR environment or a full-screen AR environment presented through the Augmented Reality Interfaces. All system components are integrated with an XML Data Exchange file transfer format providing component interoperability. ARCO also defines a Metadata Schema that describes the ARCO data model, and multimedia content used in virtual exhibitions, from digitisation to visualisation. ARCO's museum pilot sites (Victoria and Albert Museum and the Sussex Archaeological Society) assess and evaluate ARCO prototypes at Museum User Trials.