Fabrizio I. Apollonio

University of Bologna | UNIBO · Department of Architecture DA

The CoVHer Erasmus+ project addresses the long-standing lack of standardisation in hypothetical virtual 3D reconstruction and modelling in architectural heritage research. It aims to develop best practices for the 3D reconstruction of lost or never-built architectural heritage, enhancing research quality, transparency, and reusability. The collabor...

Since 2019 the authors of this paper were involved in the digital acquisition and storytelling of artifacts belonging museum collections. This work showcases on purpose various related case studies to illustrate key issues in the field. They are the Orcinus Citoniensis paleontological finding (representative of a complex geometry to be acquired), t...

For more than thirty years, 3D digital modelling has been used more and more widely as a research tool in various disciplinary fields. Despite this, the 3D models produced by different research, investigation, and speculation activities are still only used as a basis and as sources for the production of images and scientific contributions (papers i...

This paper presents preliminary findings from the ongoing Erasmus+ European project CoVHer, which focuses on the hypothetical virtual reconstructions of lost or unbuilt architecture. This contribution provides a critical assessment of the terminology specific to this field. A significant challenge lies in the absence of standardised terminology for...

A shared commitment to standardising the process of hypothetically reconstructing lost buildings from the past has characterised academic research in recent years and can manifest at various stages of the reconstructive process and with different perspectives. This research specifically aims to establish a user-independent and traceable procedure t...

Digital hypothetical 3D reconstructions are often presented through precomputed visualizations, nevertheless, new Extended Reality (XR) technologies allow the users to experience the same architectonic spaces in a much more effective and immersive way. Different technologies provide different levels of immersion and quality, and if not properly use...

3D computer-based visualization refers to all those methodologies adopted to produce, represent, describe, transmit, and present graphically/visually digital 3D models in a way that is perceivable by the human eye. Visualization is one of the core aspects of 3D reconstruction because it is the most effective medium to synthesize complex data in a v...

This chapter introduces key concepts of 3D modeling in the humanities. A 3D model can represent a great variety of objects. The objects of 3D modeling of historical architecture are lost or extant buildings, their modifications, and designs that were never executed. These buildings are as much part of the cultural heritage as their plans. The chapt...

As this chapter shows, digital 3D reconstructions of historic architecture serve many purposes in research and related areas. This comprises answering research questions by creating a 3D model, preserving cultural heritage, communicating knowledge in education, and providing a structure for knowledge organization. The process of creating a 3D recon...

This chapter is proposed to provide an overview of the different types of legal rights and legislation relating to 3D reconstruction. Since reconstructions originate from various sources and comprise intellectual work by multiple persons, they affect different levels of legal and property rights, although the specific legal situation greatly depend...

The chapter introduces the concepts of the raw model and informative model; it clarifies the concept of semantic segmentation and defines the digital representation methods and 3D modeling techniques; finally, it lists the different configuration spaces of a 3D model in different software packages.

Currently, digital reconstructions are mainly a process in one single context by interdisciplinary workgroups using expert technologies. 3D reconstructions in the humanities are primarily created within long-term interdisciplinary projects. This chapter provides an overview of the team processes and workflows to create 3D reconstructions. Interdisc...

This chapter provides an overview of the scholarly communities in which the digital 3D reconstruction is used as a method. (Visual) digital humanities—besides digital heritage and humanities disciplines such as digital art history or digital archaeology—marks the disciplinary space in which 3D reconstruction in the humanities is discussed and metho...

Currently, a large variety of infrastructures are targeting 3D models. Recently, several overview reports on extant platforms and repositories [1–5] and 3D visualization frameworks and formats [6] were compiled. Infrastructures differ from services by including tools or services and facilities for operation. Particularly for 3D models, there is a m...

The documentation of the working steps, the decisions made in a reconstruction, the applied method, and the results form one of the cornerstones of scientific practice. Over the centuries, scientific publication established itself with fixed basic principles, such as verifiability of methods, objectivity, disclosure of sources, comprehensibility of...

For the hypothetical reconstruction of architectural heritage, there are still no scientific standards of reference concerning their sharing and documentation. Recent international initiatives established the basis to address this problem; however, still, much work needs to be done in order to systematise good practices for the process of reconstru...

En el ámbito museístico es frecuente encontrarse con limitaciones logísticas que dificultan la documentación de las obras de arte. El patrimonio pictórico presenta además otras criticidades debidas a la imposibilidad de modificar la iluminación: basada en criterios de conservación y comunicación, haciendo resaltar las características materiales, cr...

This paper proposes a methodology to rationalize the process of reconstruction of no more existing or designed but never built architectures. The methodology focuses on the following aspects of the hypothetical digital 3D reconstructions: sources (e.g., gathering, use, documentation), representation method (e.g., geometry, scale, segmentation, 3D m...

In object-oriented historical research the need to combine hypotheses and textual arguments with the critical analysis based on sources – such as floor plans, sections, perspectives, and photographs – has considerably benefited from the developments in Digital Humanities (Münster, 2022). The use of digital 3D models has overcome many limitations in...

In object-oriented historical research the need to combine hypotheses and textual arguments with the critical analysis based on sources-such as floor plans, sections, perspectives, and photographs-has considerably benefited from the developments in Digital Humanities (Münster, 2022). The use of digital 3D models has overcome many limitations inhere...

Two case studies of hypothetical reconstruction are presented according to the principles of the Critical Digital Model [Apollonio et al. 2019]. One of the case studies is an architecture that was designed but never realized, and the other is the reconstruction of a historical art exhibition hosted into an architecture still existing today. This st...

The knowledge-intensive society paradigm fosters relationships between technology and human actors with data, values, and knowledge that become mutual drivers for social innovation. The cultural heritage sector is naturally influenced by this vision, and museums and cultural institutions have a prominent role in dissemination of cultural values. Th...

This paper aims to unravel the perspective construction used by Leonardo da Vinci for his iconic and celebrated unfinished painting the Adoration of the Magi. This study is the final step of years-long research brought forward by our department focused on the study of the perspective construction used by Leonardo in the preparatory drawings of his...

This contribution to the literature presents an in-depth analysis of the scene drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in the preparatory drawing, Adoration of the Magi, dated 1481, that is now housed at the Département des Arts Graphiques du Musée du Louvre in Paris, France. This analysis focuses on the architectural elements and highlights how the drawing dis...

Original hand drawings by Leonardo are astonishing collections of knowledge, superb representations of the artist's way of working, which proves the technical and cultural peak of the Renaissance era. However, due to their delicate and fragile nature, they are hard to manipulate and compulsory to preserve. To overcome this problem we developed, in...

Nowadays digital replicas of artefacts belonging to the Cultural Heritage (CH) are one of the most promising innovations for museums exhibitions, since they foster new forms of interaction with collections, at different scales. However, practical digitization is still a complex task dedicated to specialized operators. Due to these premises, this pa...

The virtual (re-)construction of architectural artefacts that never existed or were destroyed is a research topic that currently presents several problems. This study, starting from a state of the art briefly described, tries to answer various questions: describe what a Critical Digital Model (CDM) is and what qualities it must fulfil to be scienti...

Il pezzo descrive nel dettaglio le fasi operative per la ricostruzione digitale della mostra tenutasi alla chiesa dello Spirito Santo nel 1817 curata da Antonio Canova. Il tour virtuale consiste in una passeggiata all'interno della chiesa ricostruita a partire da rilievi laser e fotogrammetrici dell'attuale chiesa rielaborati sulla base di analisi...

Colours play a crucial role in the field of architectural heritage. Colour analysis and colour rendition are involved in several critical facets of heritage preservation, conservation and restoration. These aspects are related to accurate documentation and an accurate representation of heritage artefacts and architectural works. The aim of this pap...

Among many other themes, Leonardo da Vinci’s Manuscript B contains several drawings of centrally planned churches, some of which are represented using a plan view paired with a bird’s-eye view. The use of a bird’s-eye instead of an elevation represents an innovative depiction technique, which allows combining the immediacy of the perspective view w...

Among many other themes, Leonardo da Vinci’s Manuscript B contains several drawings of centrally planned churches, some of which are represented using a plan view paired with a bird’s-eye view. The use of a bird’s-eye instead of an elevation represents an innovative depiction technique, which allows to combine the immediacy of the perspective view...

p>El documento describe una metodología que cubre los procedimientos de levantamiento y las aplicaciones informáticas con el objetivo de convertir herramientas generalistas (teléfonos inteligentes) en dispositivos de adquisición rigurosa de BIC almacenados en los museos. Dos problemas diferentes se enfrentan: a) como las caracteristicas de dichos o...

English edition of the catalog of the exhibition held in Vinci, Museo Leonardiano, 15 April 2019 - 6 January 2020, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death. The exhibition aims to illustrate the strong link between the Tuscan genius and his hometown, Vinci, through a series of documents from various archival sources. In particul...

Interest in the field of digital heritage has grown considerably over the last couple of decades, giving rise to a wide range of representations that aim to visualize the past. Although the visual results of these efforts are relatively accessible, the knowledge underpinning the majority of these reconstructions is not properly documented and will...

Digital Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities are, historically seen, in focus of different communities as well as approaching different research topics and - from an organizational point of view - departments. However, are they that different? The idea of this joint article involving digital humanists and heritage researchers is to examine comm...

In this paper, we present a series of case studies of origami-like geometries modelled and animated following the principles of the synthetic method applied through parametric modelling applications. The aim of this research is to analyze the benefits and criticalities of the proposed method in the field of applied origami design. The presented met...

Cultural Heritage management is a topical issue facing administrators, professionals and scholars involved in documentation, restoration and enhancement of the cultural assets. In the paper, after a general framework on the state of the art in the sector, two recent experiences are reported about Information System and integrated service platform f...

Smartphone camera technology has made significant improvements of sensors quality and software camera performance in recent years. Devices as Apple iPhone X and the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, allow to reach levels of image resolution, sharpness and color accuracy very close to prosumer SLR cameras, enabling also on-the-fly processing and procedures wh...

Information, communication and 3D survey technology applications are important in cultural heritage preservation, research, management, conservation and dissemination of the results. Cultural heritage requires continuous scientific investigation and preservation to gather valuable information from our history and to provide better understanding for...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has attracted wide interest in the field of documentation and conservation of Architectural Heritage (AH). Existing approaches focus on converting laser scanned point clouds to BIM objects, but laser scanning is usually limited to planar elements which are not the typical state of AH where free-form and double-cu...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has attracted wide interest in the field of documentation and conservation of Architectural Heritage (AH). Existing approaches focus on converting laser scanned point clouds to BIM objects, but laser scanning is usually limited to planar elements which are not the typical state of AH where free-form and double-cu...

A partire dal 2010 l’Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna ha sviluppato una soluzione per acquisire in modo non invasivo, ricostruire digitalmente in 3D, e renderizzare tridimensionalmente disegni antichi con capacità di fedeltà del colore elevata, a una risoluzione di 50 micron, garantendo la restituzione dell’intera qualità formale e di rif...

The SACHER project provides a distributed, open source and federated cloud platform able to support the life-cycle management of various kinds of data concerning tangible Cultural Heritage. The paper describes the SACHER platform and, in particular, among the various integrated service prototypes, the most important ones to support restoration proc...

Are Digital Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities just two sides of the same medal? Both concepts deal with cultural heritage objects, employ digital technologies, often in cross-disciplinary settings , as well as comprise numerous research topics and activities. Despite these communalities, there is not much overlap between related scholarly co...

On the occasion of the recent restoration of the sixteenth century Neptune’s Fountain in Bologna, promoted by the municipality in 2015 to preserve one of the major town’s landmark, high-quality imagery has been acquired for documenting the current state of preservation of the marble and bronze surfaces before and during the restoration phases. Star...

The paper presents a critical analysis regarding the methodological approach useful to produce 3D digital contents of Cultural Heritage artifacts in context of Digital Archives. The structure of 3D model and the reconstruction process are analyzed in order to elaborate and formalize semantic knowledge concerning the work of art, object of study. So...

Digital visualization as the representation of a past that no longer exists is a communicative necessity in which virtual reconstructions have become means and experience of an otherwise intangible time. The case study presented is the expression of a methodology seeking to combine informative and scientific aspects. This method aims to provide an...

Among the many cases concerning the process of digital hypothetical 3D reconstruction a particular case is constituted by never realized projects and plans. They constitute projects designed and remained on paper that, albeit documented by technical drawings, they pose the typical problems that are common to all other cases. From 3D reconstructions...

Ensuring color fidelity in image-based 3D modeling of heritage scenarios is nowadays still an open research matter. Image colors are important during the data processing as they affect algorithm outcomes, therefore their correct treatment, reduction and enhancement is fundamental. In this contribution, we present an automated solution developed to...

The current Cultural Heritage management system lacks of ICT platforms for the management and integration of heterogeneous and fragmented data sources and interconnection between private and public subjects involved in the process. The SACHER project intends to fill this gap, working both on a technological level and on a business model level: firs...

The paper illustrates new researching methodologies applied to teaching. The workflow shows how the design of architecture and the use of three-dimensional models lead students to a process of critical knowledge that allows them to investigate the principles governing the design, composition and history of an architecture often left drawn.

Information and communication technology applications and the preservation, research and popularisation of heritage have attained an important position in the conservation, heritage management and art studies of cultural heritage. As cultural heritage has a lot of different aspects and there is often a need of continuous scientific research and pre...

The paper, aiming to retrieve the original meaning of Smart City, attempts to demonstrate its impact in the field of Cultural Heritage (CH). It presents a framework - applied in a project for a prototypical case study of ‘Widespread Built Heritage’ (WBH) - to create a Smart cultural city, transforming Cultural Items into Smart Cultural Objects (SCO...

Restoration is becoming a quite complex process: a large number of internal and external variables co-exist and may impair it. Among these, the large number of professionals involved and the huge amount of documentation produced can heavily affect the quality of the intervention as well as the possibility to have systemic and informed interventions...

The color survey of Architectural and open-air Archaeological artefacts represents a difficult operation due to a lot of factors such as subjective aspects of visual perception, objective characteristics relating to sources of lighting and the way one watches something. The paper describes a method for 3D reality-based color managed modeling, aimed...

The sixteenth-century Fountain of Neptune is one of Bologna’s most renowned landmarks. During the recent restoration activities of the monumental sculpture group, consisting in precious marbles and highly refined bronzes with water jets, a photographic campaign has been carried out exclusively for documentation purposes of the current state of pres...

Checking the irreversible process of clean-up is a delicate task that requires a work of synthesis between theoretical knowledge and practical experience, to define an effective operating protocol on a limited patch area to be extended later to the entire artefact’s surface. In this paper, we present a new, quick, semi-automated 3D photogrammetry-b...

Together with the Two Towers, the Fountain of Neptune is undoubtedly the most emblematic monumental complex in Bologna (fig. 1) Commissioned by the papal legate Cardinal Carlo Borromeo and supervised by Bishop Pier Donato Cesi, the fountain is the last in a series of works that created the current appearance of Piazza Maggiore, the imposing emblem...

The chapter presents the methodology that has been adopted to develop a process for acquiring knowledge that is able to note and make the analysis of preliminary data and interpretation criteria used through a 3D modeling reconstructive process understandable. The classification schemes and criteria adopted aimed to validate the entire process, giv...

ICT-based technological innovation has not yet made substantial advantages, although desirable, in the Cultural Heritage field, both as regards the management and as regards the use of assets. It is still weak, e.g., the receipt of the paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT). Conversely ICT-based technologies could play a main role. I.e. in the fo...

In the last years the image-based pipeline for 3D reconstruction purposes has received large interest leading to fully automated methodologies able to process large image datasets and deliver 3D products with a level of detail and precision variable according to the applications. Different open issues still exist, in particular when dealing with th...

In the last years the image-based pipeline for 3D reconstruction purposes has received large interest leading to fully automated methodologies able to process large image datasets and deliver 3D products with a level of detail and precision variable according to the applications. Different open issues still exist, in particular when dealing with th...

Automated image-based 3D reconstruction methods are more and more flooding our 3D modeling applications. Fully automated solutions give the impression that from a sample of randomly acquired images we can derive quite impressive visual 3D models. Although the level of automation is reaching very high standards, image quality is a fundamental pre-re...

Giovan Battista Aleotti was a polyhedral man of science of the XVI century, who worked in the field of architecture, engineering, scenography, but also a scientist who studied hydraulics and mechanics. He contributed to dissemination of the 'Pneumatica' of Heron of Alexandria, translating it into vulgar and enriching it with new additional notes an...

Nowadays cities, as well as Cultural Heritage, are facing new challenges due to the public financial straits and the increasing need to deliver innovative service to manage a wide heritage. Great expectations are in put the Smart City paradigm relying on the capability of the city to realize and scale up intangible infrastructures based on new typo...

The virtual reconstruction of no longer existing historic structures is obviously a subjective process that simplifies a visualization of the historical original monument. In this paper we define a methodological procedure focused on the validation of the 3D reconstructive model. The case study reported, cause of its complexity and overabundance of...

Giovan Battista Aleotti was a polyhedral man of science of the XVI century, who worked in the field of architecture, engineering, scenography, but also a scientist who studied hydraulics and mechanics. He contributed to dissemination of the ‘Pneumatica’ of Heron of Alexandria, translating it into vulgar and enriching it with new additional notes an...

Within the theoretical and methodological framework of the challenges and opportunities offered by 3D models digital archives, one of most critical topic is related to define new protocols for processing spatial data, in supporting a project of virtual reconstruction, able to validate the results and guarantee full transparency of any reconstructiv...

The paper presents a new technique for detecting and rendering the total appearance of a drawing with the aim of digitally visualizing fine drawing collections with perceptive accuracy. A drawing's total appearance can be measured using equipment commonly found in a photographic studio. The system consists of four strobes and an RGB camera. The app...

Tools and algorithms for automated image processing and 3D reconstruction purposes have become more and more available, giving the possibility to process any dataset of unoriented and markerless images. Typically, dense 3D point clouds (or texture 3D polygonal models) are produced at reasonable processing time. In this paper, we evaluate how the ra...

This paper illustrates a new method used to portray and view the most famous drawing in the world: The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. A successful workflow of acquisition, processing, visualisation and 3D digital fruition of the paper support aimed at enhancing perceptive realism and achieve a visual detail of a hundredth of a millimetre. The...

Among the actions developed in order to submit the Bologna porticoes ensemble to World heritage sites of UNESCO, there is a platform conceived for on-line accessing the huge amount of data and resources related to the porticoes. The core of platform will consist of reality-based high quality 3D models usable and navigable within the system as main...

Every day new tools and algorithms for automated image processing and 3D reconstruction purposes become available, giving the possibility to process large networks of unoriented and markerless images, delivering sparse 3D point clouds at reasonable processing time. In this paper we evaluate some feature-based methods used to automatically extract t...

The paper describes a color enhanced processing system - applied as case study on an artifact of the Pompeii archaeological area - developed in order to enhance different techniques for reality-based 3D models construction and visualization of archaeological artifacts. This processing allows rendering reflectance properties with perceptual fidelity...