FROM DAGUERREOTYPES TO DIGITAL AUTOMATIC PHOTOGRAMMETRY. APPLICATIONS AND LIMITS FOR THE BUILT HERITAGE PROJECT

Abstract. This paper will describe the evolutionary stages that shaped and built, over the time, a robust and solid relationship between ‘indirect survey methods’ and knowledge of the ‘architectural matter’, aiming at producing a conservation project for the built heritage.

Collecting architectural data by simply drawing them was considered to be inadequate by John Ruskin already in 1845. He strongly felt the need to fix them through that ‘blessed’ invention that was the ‘daguerreotype’. Today taking simple photographs is not enough: it is crucial to develop systems able to provide the best graphics supports (possibly in the third dimension) for the development and editing of the architectural project.

This paper will focus not only on the re-examination of historical data, on the research and representation of the ‘sign’, but also on the evolution of technologies and ‘reading methods’, in order to highlight their strengths and weaknesses in the real practice of conservation project and in the use of the architectures of the past.