Can you tell what is real?

In virtual reality you put on a headset and step into an environment built entirely by computer: you see nothing of what is actually around you. In augmented reality you still see the real world, with 3D content laid over it, usually through a phone camera. Mixed reality combines the two: the virtual content recognises the physical space and behaves as if it belonged in it. The choice isn’t technical, it’s about use: if you need to replace a place nobody can go to, it’s virtual; if you need to add information about something in front of you, it’s augmented.

Yes, and it is central to what we do. The reconstruction starts from what survives — a survey of the present state, photogrammetry, planimetry — and from the available archaeological record, and the missing volume is built up from there. We did it with the Temple of Diana in Mérida and the Alcántara Bridge. What matters is that the reconstruction rests on archaeological judgement rather than guesswork: anything undocumented is shown as a hypothesis, not as fact.

It depends what you want to achieve. Tours and virtual visits can be published for the browser, so anyone can enter from a phone or a computer with nothing to install. Headsets are needed when the point is full immersion: rehearsing a procedure, walking a space at real scale, or measuring a response in a controlled setting. Many projects start with the browser version precisely because it reaches more people, and keep the headsets for on-site use.

There is no fixed price, because four things set it: how much has to be modelled from scratch as against what is already documented, the level of graphical finish, how much interaction there has to be — looking does not cost the same as handling — and how many devices it has to run on. A browser tour built on existing material and an interactive headset simulator are projects of very different sizes. Tell us what you want to achieve and who it is for, and we’ll tell you roughly where it lands before talking numbers.

The studio is in Mérida, on Calle Comarca de las Hurdes, and a good part of our work comes from here: the University of Extremadura, the Regional Assembly, the heritage of the city itself. But the work is digital and it is delivered the same wherever the client is; we also run projects outside the region. For the capture stage — photogrammetry, 360 video, surveying — we do travel to the site.

Three things, none of them technical: what you want to achieve, who it is for, and whether there is a deadline. That is enough to say whether virtual or augmented reality is the right tool — sometimes it isn’t, and we say so. If there is existing material (plans, 3D models, surveys, photographs), it shortens the work and lowers the cost, so it is worth mentioning from the start.