Digital cultural mediation: bring your heritage to life in 3D and augmented reality
Visitor apps with no app download, real-time 3D, augmented reality and AI-driven storytelling for museums and heritage sites — from idea to rollout, by one team based in Vélizy-Villacoublay, greater Paris.
What is digital cultural mediation?
Digital cultural mediation is the use of interactive technology — visitor apps, 3D, augmented reality, AI-driven storytelling, and on-site installations such as video mapping or interactive screens — to connect a collection, a site or an exhibition with its audience. It works in two places: on the visitor's device, and in the exhibition space.
Rebuild a lost monument, put a work back in its context, reveal the invisible: layers, restorations, scale.
Tell a story, rank the information, adapt the narrative to each audience children, specialists, international visitors.
Through gamification, free exploration and content people enjoy showing and sharing.
Museums, heritage sites, exhibitions and local authorities
Digital cultural mediation suits any venue that wants to enrich the visit and reach new audiences without adding to its physical scenography.
Refresh the offer and attract younger audiences: augmented visitor journey, gamification, multilingual content.
Make a damaged or vanished site legible: 3D reconstruction and augmented reality on site.
Make an impact over a short run: a digital exhibition setup that deploys fast.
Promote a territory: an augmented visitor journey across a whole city.
Industrialise the experience across several sites: platform plus CMS to run it in-house.
Showcase your trades and employer brand: immersive roadshow, touring AR modules (see Orano).
Our digital mediation experiences
A set of experiences you can combine, on the visitor's smartphone and in the exhibition space. All built in-house, with no app to install.
A Web App (PWA) opened from a QR code — no store, no install. The visit starts in seconds.
Monuments and works rebuilt in high-fidelity 3D, in the browser. Visitors explore, zoom in and walk through a building that no longer stands.
3D content layered over the real world, with no app download. A statue or a building reappears at full scale, with an AR encyclopaedia.
Multilingual audio narration (ElevenLabs voice synthesis) covers many languages without studio sessions. AI put to work for your interpretation.
Treasure hunts, riddles, rewards, bridges to the shop: the visit becomes active, and there is a reason to come back.
A CMS to keep the content moving, and a KPI dashboard to measure attendance, journeys and engagement.
Beyond the smartphone: interactive experiences on site
Digital mediation does not only live on the phone: it also takes shape in the space, where scenography becomes interactive. When a project calls for it, we design and deploy on-site installations — case by case, often with scenographers — that carry the immersion beyond the screen.
Project stories and light onto walls, façades or objects to make a place speak.
Add a layer of information over a display case or a model, and handle a collection with several pairs of hands.
Trigger content, sound or light through the visitor's presence and movement.
The ancient city of Nîmes, rebuilt in 3D and open to everyone
Experiences already deployed in the field
From the ancient city of Nîmes to Orano's employer appeal, our immersive experiences serve very different audiences and goals.
One team, from idea to rollout.
Immersion
We audit your site, your audiences and your objectives: attendance, image, self-generated revenue.
Architecture
Technical choices, visitor journey, functional specifications.
Design
UX/UI, digital scenography, interactive prototypes tested in the field.
Development
3D/WebGL, Web AR, narration, CMS — built in-house, with regular checkpoints.
Rollout
Acceptance testing, performance tuning, go-live, and training your teams to run it.
Frequently asked questions
What is digital cultural mediation?
It covers the interactive tools — visitor app, 3D, augmented reality, audio narration — that make heritage accessible and understandable for every audience. It extends traditional interpretation by making it immersive, multilingual and measurable.
Do I need to download an app for the tour?
No. We build Web Apps (PWA) that open straight in the browser from a QR code, with no install and no store. It is the most effective format, because most visitors will not download an app for a one-off visit.
How much does a museum tour app cost?
It depends on the scope. On the market, a simple visitor journey starts at a few thousand euros, and a custom augmented reality app usually goes beyond €50,000. Metasense prices each project after a scoping phase, based on the technologies, the volume of content and the operating model.
What is the difference between a 360° virtual tour and an augmented 3D tour?
A 360° virtual tour is built from panoramic photographs (Matterport-style): you look at a frozen place. An augmented 3D visit relies on real-time modelling (WebGL): the visitor moves freely through a reconstructed space, changing angle and scale. That second approach is the one we design.
What is WebAR for a museum?
Web AR is augmented reality accessed from a browser, with no app to install. On site, visitors point their phone and watch a statue, a fresco or a lost building reappear at real scale. It runs from a simple QR code.
Can the tour be offered in multiple languages?
Yes. We produce multilingual audio narration with AI voice synthesis (ElevenLabs), which covers many languages without multiplying studio recordings. It is AI put to work for the accessibility of your interpretation.
How to measure visitor engagement?
Our experiences include a KPI dashboard that tracks attendance, the routes taken, time spent and interactions. You get concrete data to assess engagement and keep the content moving.
Can we update the content ourselves?
Yes. Every experience ships with a custom CMS, so you can change text, media and journeys in-house, without depending on the agency. Interpretation becomes an asset you control over time.
How long does it take to deploy a solution?
It varies with the scale. As a benchmark, the full Nîmes la Romaine Web App (3D, Web AR, AI narration, gamification, CMS) was delivered in six months. A more focused digital exhibition setup can go live faster.
Can the system handle high traffic?
Yes. Our Web Apps are built to scale: the Nîmes la Romaine app handles thousands of simultaneous connections, which is essential for a busy site or a tourist peak.
Do you offer solutions for physical spaces, rather than just smartphones?
Yes, when the project calls for it. Beyond the Web App, we design and deploy on-site installations (video mapping, transparent screens, touch surfaces), case by case and often with scenographers. Our value is the continuity between the experience in the space and the one on the visitor's device.
Work
Heritage, brought to the stage
Further reading
Let's talk about your mediation project
A conversation to frame your need, your audiences and your objectives — and to see how a digital experience can bring your heritage to life.