Exploring Étampes: MEMORIST’s New Augmented Reality Heritage App
The Communauté d’Agglomération de l’Étampois Sud-Essonne intercommunal structure in France wanted to develop a mobile app for cultural outreach aimed at the public. The project is part of a drive to enhance the local area’s appeal by making its rich historical, architectural, and landscape heritage accessible in an innovative, immersive way.
To bring this project to fruition, Aurore Dallérac, Director of the Museum and Heritage Department and the Pays d’art et d’histoire de l’Étampois classification, selected MEMORIST.
The app has two main objectives: first, to enable residents, visitors, and schoolchildren to (re)discover iconic sites in the town of Étampes and its surrounding area through a multimedia-enriched tour; and second, to provide visitors with an augmented reality experience combining 3D historical reconstructions, 360° panoramic photographs, illustrative material, and educational commentary.
The app was launched on 29 May 2026 at the foot of the Guinette Tower in Étampes.
Two routes to explore the town and its surrounding area
Designed as a digital, standalone, interactive tour companion, the app offers two tour routes that can be accessed on smartphones and tablets. On the home page, users can choose between a tour of the town of Étampes, which can be completed on foot, and an intercommunal structure (communauté d’agglomération) tour, which can be completed by car.
Both tours are structured around several points of interest (POIs):
- The tour of the town of Étampes takes visitors to five of the town’s most iconic sites:
the Collégiale Notre Dame, Place Saint-Gilles, Les Portereaux (a fortified sluice gate), the Théâtre Intercommunal, and the Guinette Tower, which offers a 360° view.
The tour also features explanatory texts and illustrations. Users can see images showing how the tower has changed over the years or view a cut-away diagram (an overview of the structure cut in two) to see its internal architecture. Other features, such as a drone video and an aerial map showing how the area has changed over the centuries, as well as immersive views depicting life at the castle in the 15th century, enhance visitors’ understanding of this symbolic town monument. - The tour of the urban area of Étampes enables visitors to discover five historic and tourist sites in the region, including the youth hostel in Boissy-la-Rivière, the Gallo-Roman sanctuary in Saclas, the Halle de Méréville (a historic market hall), the Sainte-Apolline spring in Chalou-Moulineux, and Église Saint-Denis in Saint-Escobille.
Preparatory work to survey landmarks
During the preparation of the app, a navigation scenario covering the town and wider urban area was used to select the landmarks for inclusion in the virtual tour. In order to develop the app, the points of interest along the route needed to be scanned on site beforehand.
The scanning stage involved two days of on-site work by three people, as well as the use of various surveying technologies, such as 3D laser scanning, 360° photography, and aerial scanning by drone.
Following this initial phase, post-scanning work was carried out to process and calibrate the digital data for use in the augmented reality app.
One year’s work: from software design to the production and development of the app
The initial functional definition phase was carried out in close collaboration with the Étampes project manager.
The first step was to define the target tree structure for the app, including the various screens and how users would navigate between them, as well as the proposed content and interactions.
Next, functional mock-ups of each screen were created, along with a graphic mock-up showing the positioning of media, text, and interactive buttons, before the final graphic design was integrated.
Creating the historical reconstructions was the most time-consuming part of the project. It took over six months to complete, involving:
- Creating immersive 360° views at the foot of the Guinette Tower and on the main floors.
- Modelling the castle’s evolution over the centuries.
- Producing the architectural cut-away diagram.
This phase took a long time due to the scale of the documentary research required, the regular consultations with the scientific advisory board, and the work involved in producing 3D computer graphics for the architectural reconstructions, characters, and historical scenes.
In terms of multimedia content, the app places great emphasis on 360° panoramic photographs and 3D reconstructions. The accompanying text, written in collaboration with local historians and archivists, provides accurate and relevant additional information on each point of interest.
The MEMORIST teams planned and scheduled these 12 months of work using a detailed reverse project schedule from the outset.
Boosting Étampes’s appeal to tourists by harnessing its heritage
The app, called “Étampois 360°”, is the first of its kind in Essonne. This project was designed from the start to be scalable and can be gradually expanded with new content and tour routes. This allows it to adapt to future heritage, tourism, or educational initiatives in the Étampois Sud Essonne intercommunal structure.
Would you like to download the free app?
It is available free of charge on the App Store for iOS devices and Google Play for Android devices.
To find out more about our expertise and projects, click here.
To discuss a project with us, click here.
