Itihas - Heritage Assistant

Home page

Inspiration

India has one of the richest heritages in the world, but most people only see monuments as “tourist spots” without understanding the stories, architecture, and cultural meaning behind them. We wanted to create something that makes heritage feel alive, accessible, and interactive—especially for students, travelers, and local communities.

What it does

Itihas – Heritage Assistant is an AI-powered heritage companion that helps users explore historical places through: -Deep historical and cultural insights -Multilingual support for wider accessibility -Image-based analysis (upload a monument photo and get architecture/material insights) -3D visualization experience for immersive exploration -Favorites to save and revisit heritage places

How we built it

Built the frontend using React + Vite + TypeScript Integrated Gemini API for: -multilingual responses historical storytelling -image analysis and architectural insights -Used a clean component-based structure for scalability -Designed the UI to feel modern and interactive, like a “heritage explorer dashboard”

Challenges we ran into

Ensuring Gemini responses stayed accurate and structured instead of random long paragraphs Handling image upload + analysis smoothly Designing a UI that looks engaging while keeping it lightweight for fast loading Managing multilingual translations and formatting

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a complete working heritage assistant within hackathon time Successfully integrated multilingual + image understanding in one product Made heritage exploration feel more immersive with 3D visualization support Created a project that is useful for real users: students, tourists, and heritage lovers

What we learned

-How to design better prompts for structured AI outputs -How Gemini can be used for both vision + language tasks -Building real-world AI apps requires balancing creativity with factual correctness -Importance of UI/UX in AI projects to make them feel like real products

What's next for Itihas - Heritage Assistant

In the future, we plan to add: -AI Tour Planner (custom routes based on time, city, and interest) -Voice-based interaction (ask questions like a real guide) -AR mode for real-time monument information using camera -More heritage sites dataset + verified sources for stronger accuracy -User accounts + cloud sync for favorites and history