Virtual Models for the Preservation and Assessment of Architectural and Archaeological Heritage

An enquiry into a work of architecture signifies investigating a physical space constructed and experienced by man ever since his appearance on earth as well as analysing elements that vary from structures of great dimensions to the smallest objects. Corresponding to this dimensional variety is a series of problems connected with the instruments which enable us to get a knowledge of these objects, a knowledge conceived in terms of the synthesis of surveying and the survey. To the former belong all the operations indispensable to determine elements necessary to fashion the characteristics of the object under study; ascribed to the latter - through model construction – the representation of all the characteristic features identified in the preceding stage of surveying. Hence the operation of cognizing becomes a synapse (σύναψις) between the theoretical aspect and the operative one. Observing the process of cognition of the work of architecture we cannot disregard that instruments of massive data acquisition and digital representation have become almost the only intermediaries for the study and the communication of the cognitive process. In the past the subject of the process of cognizing an artifact was strictly linked to the problems intrinsic in the traditional instruments applied as well as to the prolonged timing of data acquisition. Moreover, the quantity of information acquired often proved to be insufficient and inadequate for scientific purposes while the high subjectivity of representation yielded reinterpretations of little congruence with the object studied. The technological development of the last two or three decades has radically changed the process of cognition due to the development of instruments that have transformed surveying operations into semi-automatic processes capable of gathering millions of points at a very low uncertainty level.1 Thanks to this we are able to construct detailed models that allow of a very extensive cognition of the object by reducing the possibility of too subjective interpretations, also because it is now possible to share ever faster the raw data and 2D and 3D models.