Building archaeology informative modelling turned into 3D volume stratigraphy and extended reality time-lapse communication

Abstract

This paper describes the case study of the damaged church of St. Francesco in the hamlet of Arquata del Tronto (Italy) that was struck by the earthquake in 2016. The municipality commissioned the research to support the preliminary design of the preservation plan. The first digitisation level has been started from the richness of surveying data acquired from static and dynamic terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and photogrammetry, overcoming challenging constraints due to the scaffolding covering the surfaces. The geometric survey allowed authors to acquire massively geometric and material information supporting the three-dimensional (3D) volume stratigraphic and the creation of the Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM). The paper proposes a shift from the Geographic Information System (GIS)-based analysis of the materials toward spatial HBIM management. Building Archaeology is turned into HBIM 3D volume stratigraphy, overcoming the bidimensional (2D) surface mapping, in favour of a 3D understanding of direct and indirect sources. Material mapping is added to HBIM 3D volume stratigraphy, and each stratigraphic unit (SU) has its proprieties. The 3D volume stratigraphic database has been designed to collect the data on the unit detection at three levels (direct sources data collection, indirect data documentation, the relation among the BIM object elements). A common data environment (CDE) has been set up to share the 3D volume informative models that can be accessed, and all the information gathered. The knowledge transfer using the eXtended reality (XR) has been devoted to the citizen and tourist fruition, enhancing the comprehension of difficult concepts like the SUs to support a better critical 3D reconstruction. It includes the phases of construction across time-lapse documentation that validates related information within the building archaeology informative models leaving spaces to the uncertainty and documenting the relationship established so far thanks to the direct and indirect sources. The result obtained is a live digital twin that can be continuously updated, which justifies the costs and time demanding of HBIM despite 2D drawings.Highlights: • 3D survey and scan-to-HBIM process for the creation of a digital twin were oriented to the preliminary design of the preservation plan of the church of St. Francesco in Arquata del Tronto (Italy). • Stratigraphy is investigated and oriented towards a digitisation process to share different levels of knowledge through new forms of digital-sharing such as Common Data Environment (CDE) and cloud-based BIM platform. • eXtended reality (XR) is the final tool to reach new levels of communication and a wider audience characterised by experts in the construction sector and virtual and non-expert tourists.

Data-driven conservation actions of heritage places curated with HBIM

“…The function of a typical BIM extends from producing 2D drawings to the operational management of the project's finances. Recent literature has indicated two essential parameters that define a BIM as an HBIM; the specific modelling procedures for in-situ heritage sites and the integration of heritage-related analytic information, such as material culture and deterioration patterns (Jouan & Hallot, 2019;Banfi et al, 2022). To generate a discipline-specific overview of the advances in the cultural heritage field, we revisited recent HBIM studies, comprising 45 papers published in scientific outlets from 2009 to 2021.…”

“…Among them, the oldest case was a 7 th century vault (Banfi, 2020), the study of which dealt with heritage knowledge at the building element scale. Various papers have pointed out that when using polysurfaces as solid geometries, as with volumes made with NURBS surfaces, the accurate geometric representation of the object is quite achievable; this has been studied in the geometric modelling field, for example in finite element analysis for structural analysis (Banfi, 2019;Banfi et al, 2022;Barazzetti, 2016;Brumana et al, 2017Brumana et al, , 2018.…”

“…There is an increasing interest in developments which expand the capabilities of HBIM, such as element modelling (Barazzetti, Banfi, Brumana, & Previtali, 2015), HBIM element library experiments (Baik, Alitany, Boehm, & Robson, 2014), information mapping (Chiabrando, Lo Turco, & Rinaudo, 2017), mixed-reality applications (Banfi, 2021), the development of generative modelling methodology (Brumana et al, 2018), and even the illustration of a road map for holistic conservation practices (Brumana et al, 2020) and building archaeology (Banfi et al, 2022). Despite these significant attempts, using HBIM for data-driven conservation actions remains an open field of study.…”

Heritage BIM Approach for roman pavements

“…These models, so called digital-twins, reproduce both all phases of design of new works and as-built models of newly constructed structures or already existing buildings (Borrmann et al, 2018;Guerra de Oliveira et al 2022;. In the latter case, if buildings have historical character, BIM becomes H-BIM (Murphy et al, 2013) or Archaeo-BIM (Archaeological BIM) if the buildings have archaeological value (Banfi et al, 2022;Intignano et al, 2021).…”

Medieval cultural heritage, from 3D survey to data management: the castle of Canossa

“…The cloud-BIM platforms have a great influence on data transparency and accessibility, not only for IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) files but also for external semantic data linked to the objects. The implementation of the BIM model intends to be achieved with reference to other similar works proposed in literature [5] and consists of two main aspects: i) virtual reconstruction of the castle based on the 3D survey and archival documentation, for the realization of virtual/augmented reality applications (VR/AR technologies), which concerns a dissemination and fruition aspects [6,7]; ii) use of shared platforms for the collaboration and data management in the field of cultural heritage conservation. Although the use of GIS (Geographic Information System) in archeology has always been, and still is contentious at the theoretical level [8,9], the use of GIS technology is nowadays almost taken for granted.…”