Description
The tools and methods of investigation for the knowledge of architectural artefacts have received a notable boost in the last decade thanks to the rapid evolution of technologies such as 3D laser scanners, mobile scanners, range-based modeling, image-based Modeling. The coordinated use of these technologies, in an integrated digital methodology, allows us to provide accurate three-dimensional models of the architecture. The application of survey methodologies in a specific field such as bridges, especially if of historical-monumental value, it has highlighted some peculiarities such as, for example, the relationship with the environmental context and the technical-constructive component; the bridge, being in fact also an infrastructural work, must also be investigated from the point of view of its structural behaviour.
Although the survey activity should always be understood as a single scientific process knowledge, from a methodological point of view of evaluating the main peculiarities and critical issues, three phases can be distinguished: acquisition, processing and interpretation, each of which has specific problems. Beyond the consolidated scientific methodology, each significant activity represents a unicum, as each object is unique. However, the experiments carried out in carrying out our research on some bridges of particular historical value have made it possible to define a procedural protocol and to codify a methodology that can be used and repeated in similar examples. The setting up of such a protocol is not intended as a simplification and standardization of the detection process, but rather as an aid within a critical path, in order to obtain an optimization of the entire detection and analysis process.
In addition to the application of procedures for the acquisition and processing of three-dimensional models consolidated in recent years, we also wanted to test the potential of HBIM (Heritage Building Information Modeling) processes applied to Cultural Heritage. Although research is evolving very rapidly, the process and the related BIM modeling applied to cultural heritage still requires further investigation since current models do not allow us to effectively and exhaustively relate all the components that characterize the study of an ancient bridge.
