The paper presents the integration of Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality tools for the built Heritage management and control, both remote and on-site, and real time interaction, starting from a preliminary set of experimentation carried out for knowledge and tourism purposes.
Within the framework of these experimentations, specific data inventories are related to the IFC model, and all these data are collected on a cloud-based platform, allowing the “dialogue” among platform and applications. Therefore, BIM integration is the first step of the procedure, considering a workflow where data capturing, digital documentation, and data modeling and aggregation are the entry level to manage applications able to give an added value in gaining the greatest technical benefit from digitization. Mapping the main features and the state of conservation is the second step, including geometric features, historical knowledge, documents and pictures related to materials, diagnostic analysis, etc.
Starting from AR applications developed on several case studies, including historical buildings, museums and a church, aimed at an immersive on-site navigation thanks to a set of additional information related to the digital model, experimentations oriented to technical uses are presented.
An extension of applications for the analysis and interpretation of architectural heritage and technical uses can be an effective support in restoration, conservation and maintenance of historic buildings, by enhancing the real world through virtual objects and creating a new mixed reality environment for technical users.
The digital anastylosis and the semantic segmentation: the case of the Magna Graecia masks in the Mediterranean area
Fifty years of archaeological activities carried out in the Aeolian Islands have made it possible to bring to light the most complete collection of theatrical masks of the ancient world, an important testimony of the material culture of the theatrical world, during the Classical era. The theatrical masks, preserved at the ‘L. Bernabò Brea’ of Lipari, may be schematized, from a morphological point of view, in three distinct degrees: ‘whole masks’, whole fragments and ‘mute’ fragments. The digital reconstruction and anastylosis workflow follow the same breakdown of these three degrees of status: they have been developed through an inverted pyramid trend, in a scalar and hierarchical way. The universality of the method makes it repeatable and universally applicable to other archaeological finds belonging to a proto-industrial and serial artisan production.
The research aims to define a series of methodologies and techniques to be adopted for the direct survey of archaeological artefacts in fragments and for the definition of a reconstruction and digital anastylosis protocol, with the aim to restore a new memory to the so-called ‘mute’ finds. In order to clarify the genealogical and filiation relationships between the masks, a geometric grid of conspicuous points was identified on each digital model which allowed to rearrange the finds on the basis of their dimensional relationships and to advance, at the same time, a parallel hypothesis of segmentation and semantic annotation, it experimenting the most modern and innovative semantic annotation practices for the Cultural Heritage, in order to improve the understanding, the cataloging and enhancement of the historical data.
Combining on-site and off-site analysis: towards a new paradigm for cultural heritage surveys
In recent decades, cultural heritage survey practices have significantly evolved due to the increasing use of digitization tools providing quick and easy access to faithful copies of study objects. While these digital data have clear advantages, especially in terms of geometric characterization, they also introduce a paradigm shift by outsourcing ex situ most of the analysis activities. This break between real and virtual working environments now raises new issues, both in terms of data dispersion and knowledge correlation in multidisciplinary teams. Benefiting from the fields of information systems and augmented reality, we proposed an integrated approach allowing the fusion of geometric, visual and semantic features in a single platform. Today, this proof of concept leads to new perspectives for the production of semantically enriched digital data. In this paper, we intend to explore the different possibilities in terms of implementation and their benefits for cultural heritage survey.
AR in the Architecture Domain: State of the Art
Augmented reality (AR) allows the real and digital worlds to converge and overlap in a new way of observation and understanding. The architectural field can significantly benefit from AR applications, due to their systemic complexity in terms of knowledge and process management. Global interest and many research challenges are focused on this field, thanks to the conjunction of technological and algorithmic developments from one side, and the massive digitization of built data. A significant quantity of research in the AEC and educational fields describes this state of the art. Moreover, it is a very fragmented domain, in which specific advances or case studies are often described without considering the complexity of the whole development process. The article illustrates the entire AR pipeline development in architecture, from the conceptual phase to its application, highlighting each step’s specific aspects. This storytelling aims to provide a general overview to a non-expert, deepening the topic and stimulating a democratization process. The aware and extended use of AR in multiple areas of application can lead a new way forward for environmental understanding, bridging the gap between real and virtual space in an innovative perception of architecture.