FROM SCAN-TO-BIM TO HERITAGE BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING FOR AN ANCIENT ARAB-NORMAN CHURCH

Abstract. One of the most significant issues in Cultural Heritage is the management of ancient buildings to monitor their state of conservation or to plan actions in their maintenance; this issue can be now approached thanks to the use of the Scan-to-BIM process. This method allows the creation of parametric models into a BIM environment, which are capable of enhancing the geometrical representation of building elements and integrating different types of data.

This paper shows the results of the research activities carried out by the Department of Engineering at University of Palermo (Italy) on applying the Scan-to-BIM approach to the survey and the modelling of an ancient Arab-Norman church in Palermo. This activity was motivated by a renewed interest from the local Administration towards the Arab-Norman Cultural Heritage in the city, since other more famous coeval monuments were included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 2015. The morpho-typological style of the church has been spotlighted by a high-detailed 3D laser scanner and photogrammetric survey. The aim of the modelling phase was to obtain a parametric model which was suit to render the peculiarity of this building at its best. Extensive knowledge about historical building techniques has been needed in order to model all the architectural elements. The results of this study allowed to obtain a HBIM of an Arab-Norman building and to reveal the weaknesses affecting the whole workflow; these were mainly due to the approach chosen for the modelling of the most particular architectural elements.