Digital 3D recon­struc­tion as a rese­arch envi­ron­ment in art and archi­tec­ture history | Infra­st­ruc­ture for docu­men­ta­tion and publication

The emer­ging BIM metho­do­logy and the exchange data format IFC are chan­ging the way of col­la­bo­ra­tion, visua­li­sa­tion and docu­men­ta­tion in 3D models for plan­ning, con­struc­tion and faculty manage­ment pro­cesses. The intro­duc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment of the Semantic Web, sprea­ding the idea of struc­tured, for­ma­lised and linked data, offers seman­ti­cally enri­ched human- and machine-read­able data.

In con­trast to civil engi­nee­ring (BIM/​IFC) and cul­tural heri­tage (CIDOC CRM), aca­demic object-ori­ented disci­plines, like archaeo­logy, art and archi­tec­ture history, are acting as out­side spec­ta­tors. Since the 1990s, however, it has been argued that a 3D model is not likely to be con­si­dered a sci­en­tific recon­struc­tion unless it is grounded on accu­rate docu­men­ta­tion and visualisation.

Thus, there have been many calls for an approved e‑documentation related to 3D recon­struc­tion pro­jects, but these stan­dards are still mis­sing and the vali­da­tion of the out­comes is not ful­filled. Mean­while, the digital rese­arch data remain ephe­meral and the 3D recon­struc­tion pro­jects con­tinue to fill the gro­wing digital cemeteries.

The dis­ser­ta­tion by Igor Bajena focuses, in this con­text, on chal­lenges con­cerned publi­ca­tion and docu­men­ta­tion of the source-based 3D recon­struc­tions in the domain of archaeo­logy, art and archi­tec­ture history. In par­ti­cular, it deals with the crea­ting a metho­do­logy that takes into account the docu­men­ta­tion of sci­en­tific work and the deve­lo­p­ment of a tool for the publi­ca­tion of sci­en­tific models that meet the stan­dards of data publi­ca­tion in the web known as FAIR Princi­ples (2016), as well as gui­de­lines for working on digital models in the field of arche­logy, as well as art history and archi­tec­ture such as London Charter (2006) or Seville Princi­ples (2011).
The main ques­tions that are taken into con­si­de­ra­tion are:

• How to docu­ment the pro­cess with minimal effort to ensure the sci­en­tific value of the work?
• How the docu­men­ta­tion of the work be inte­grated with the model in a way that allows their joint publication?
• How to publish the results of sci­en­tific work on recon­struc­tion in a way that ensures the long-term pre­ser­va­tion of data and their reada­bi­lity not only for humans, but also for machines?

The work initi­ally focuses on deve­lo­ping a sci­en­tific metho­do­logy for working on hypo­the­tical 3D recon­struc­tion, which will be tested by a group of stu­dents, with par­ti­cular emphasis on the attempt to include infor­ma­tion about the pro­cess in the model in various soft­ware. The results of the work will be published in the pro­prie­tary sci­en­tific repo­si­tory along with a set of meta­data for docu­men­ta­tion and visua­liz­a­tion of the model with atta­ched data in a web-based viewer.
In the end, this pro­cess will lead an answer to the ques­tion of how to esti­mate the sci­en­tific value of a 3D model. The con­si­de­ra­tions also take into account the need to ensure the pre­ser­va­tion, avai­la­bi­lity or re-usa­bi­lity of the data.

Betreuer

Prof. Fabrizio Ivan Apol­lonio – Dipar­ti­mento di Archi­tettura, Uni­ver­sità di Bologna & Prof. Dr.-Ing. Piotr Kuro­c­zyński – Archi­tek­tur­in­stitut der Hoch­schule Mainz

Lauf­zeit des Projekts

01 November 2021 – 31 October 2024 (pre­dicted end)

Betei­ligt