THEY were the technological pioneers of their time and now their indelible mark on the Scottish landscape has been given a 21st century twist.

The Antonine Wall, the Roman Empire's northern-most frontier, is now the subject of a dedicated cutting-edge mobile device app, allowing visitors to interact with it in a whole new way.

A collaboration between Historic Scotland, one of several partners who look after the wall, and partner bodies in Germany, the gadget will be available from April 2016, helping visitors explore the World Heritage Site, which stretches almost 40 miles across central belt.

The Bavarian museums service created an earlier similar app, which allows visitors to access information on two parts of the Roman frontier in the south German region.

The Antonine Wall app will draw on 3D laser scanning work and interactive models of museum artefacts taken from the Wall, to give visitors a better idea of how points of interest such as the fort at Rough Castle, or the bath house at Bar Hill, would have looked when the Wall operated as a frontier.

Historic Scotland's Barbara Cummins said the agreement was a "significant step forward."