FROM THE GENERAL DOCUMENTATION OF HADRIAN'S VILLA TO DESIGN ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX CUPOLAS: A PROCEDURAL APPROACH

Abstract. The paper illustrates the progress of Hadrian's Villa digital documentation with special emphasis on a series of modelling issues emerged while studying vaults and cupolas of the site. Together with the more general problem of giving scientific coherence to both active and passive sensor outputs – systematically gathered from 2013 – a methodological problem concerning data interpretation of complex opus caementicium vaults have become dramatically important for the interdisciplinary research team. A methodology for improving the understanding the original shapes of Hadrianic cupolas was designed to provide scholars and professionals operating at the Villa with reliable and easy to use outputs, for interpretation, restoration, maintenance practice. Sensors integration played a fundamental role since allowed researchers a global understanding of intrados and extrados surfaces using reverse modelling applications. Features and 2D primitives extracted from high-resolution models were analysed in order to create flexible procedural models of reconstruction hypothesis/completion of cupolas. Due to the very nature of these shapes (apparently irregular), but with a solid geometric conception, we applied the last achievements of Catmull-Clark bicubic surfaces in combination with Visual Programming Language (VPL).