Arico, Manuela (2025) Application of scan-to-BIM approaches to HBIM digitisations in architectural heritage environment for documentation, management and conservation purposes. PhD thesis, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy.
Abstract
The operative methodology of this research has been tailored upon the purposes illustrated in the last paragraph, to validate an improved framework for optimising historic building information modelling (HBIM) models which enable an interpretation of architectural heritage (AH) buildings as correct and complete as possible. Although Scan-to-BIM could be considered a well-established framework, this research tried experimental procedures aimed at empowering both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the digitisation, especially affecting data acquisition and the manual modelling phases. The data acquisition through multi-data capturing system (MDCS) techniques and their post-processing are canonical routines which provide the most reliable outputs for reality-based models; however, different capturing methodologies have been tested either through their integration or comparison in order to evaluate their effectiveness in detecting sufficiently accurate initial information tailored to the scopes of both the surveys and the models. The direct, manual approach still represents the most used and valid method in modelling; despite this, to overcome its notorious limitations, it has been supplemented by novelties offering alternative workflows, tools and libraries whenever the standard ones provided by the building information modelling (BIM) environment were not satisfactory for cultural heritage (CH) management needs. These testbeds were focused on the digitisation of atypical architectural items through non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) modelling, and the integration of heterogeneous, queryable data inside the models enabling further investigations and thematic mapping. Once the trustworthiness of this new dynamic framework had been benchmarked from a computational point of view, it could be serialised and implemented on a standard basis for providing more precise solutions to the most recurring issues in the generative parametrisation and the documentation of the historical evidence of architectural heritage. The improved framework has been applied on four case studies, the first three belonging to the medieval AH in Sicily: the churches of San Giovanni dei Lebbrosi and San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Palermo, and the Trinità di Delia in Castelvetrano (Trapani, Western Sicily). Their digitisation led to the establishment of an adequate framework for data acquisition, the adoption of improved modelling procedures from point clouds for typical construction families, and the implementation of a small library of parametric and customisable elements related to a particular historic architectural style. The fourth case study is a cave Baroque church dug into an archaeological Punic settlement in Marsala (Western Sicily), named Santa Maria della Grotta, which offered the possibility to document a densely stratified area, test an experimental procedure for thematic mapping of decay alterations, and create an expandable database collecting semantic information relevant to decay monitoring tailored to CH management purposes.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Lo Brutto, Mauro |
| Index terms: | monitoring, effectiveness, investigation, modelling, implementation, conservation, operative, data acquisition, post-processing, building information modelling, case study, database, information modelling, methodology, integration, mapping, evidence, workflow, routine, point cloud, historic building, survey, documentation |
| Subjects: | research methods, spatial and geospatial analysis, digital design, environmental policy, analytical methods, contractual arrangements, construction type, evaluation and assessment methods, practitioner, sociology, data management, organizational analysis, information systems, performance management, management, professional development, data science, data collection methods, control systems |
| Topics: | Quality Management, Engineering Principles, Sustainability, Procurement, Digital Applications, Site Management, Organizational Design, Business Strategy, Information Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Construction Technology |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here