VERSATIL TOOLS: DIGITAL SURVEY AND VIRTUAL REALITY FOR DOCUMENTATION, ANALYSIS AND FRUITION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN SEISMIC AREAS

Abstract. The paper deals with an interdisciplinary research activity aiming at developing a digital and integrated tool able to collect several data concerning the cultural heritage, and to manage and communicate them to a wide community. The small church of San Menna, located in the hamlet with same name in the municipality of Lucoli not so far from L’Aquila city, was the object of the research. The church has been chosen for its historical significance, its architectural peculiarity and for the valuable artworks that it preserves. Based on a photogrammetric model of the church, also used for the remote analysis of cultural asset (planimetric and evolutionary hypotheses, three-dimensional stratigraphic analysis, etc.) a virtual word usable in Virtual Reality (VR) has been developed. The VR setting allows the accessibility of a digital semantic model with information that can be activated with special interactive hotspots (images, texts and audio), which are able to provide an immersive and all-encompassing experience to the tourist. The potentialities of the same tool in the context of diagnosis and conservation process related to cultural heritage in seismic areas, such as those of the Abruzzi Apennines, have also been investigated through the integration of forms concerning the significant features of the artistic assets surveyed in the construction.