The inherent traits of industrial heritage, such as its age, architectural significance, cultural resonance, and technological importance, have led to its classification as a historical monument. Over recent years, the application of nonintrusive digital technologies has become prevalent in endeavours aimed at documenting, digitizing, and conserving facets of industrial heritage. Additionally, digitization enhances accessibility and promotes industrial heritage as a cultural asset for wider public appreciation.
The utilization of digitization has seen a notable rise among technical museums, safeguarding and promoting elements of industrial heritage, including buildings and collections. Moreover, the digitization of industrial heritage is increasingly recognized for its educational potential, offering avenues for deeper understanding and appreciation of its distinctive traits while solidifying its place in the collective consciousness as a valuable cultural asset.
3D technologies are widely used for the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage. 3D reconstructions of objects or architecture are widely used, especially in archaeology, to propose reconstructions.
While 3D reconstructions may not precisely replicate reality, they can amalgamate theory and sources made of data into an easily understandable format. Consequently, 3D reconstructions offer a dynamic and intuitive platform for presenting hypotheses to the public, occasionally facilitating experimentation within simulated environments.
Their value lies in allowing the user to enjoy single objects and buildings built with a new model.
User-generated reconstructions, therefore, created by a modeller, differ from survey-generated ones (photogrammetry, laser scanners, structured light scanners). While survey-based reconstructions start from the real object, user generated models are mediated and created from scratch by a modeler, who builds it starting from a dataset. The most important concepts in relation to 3D models are accuracy, precision, resolution and reliability. Accuracy and precision are more linked to survey-based models, while for user-generated models, we talk about
Reliability: Deviation of a representation from reality due to subjective choices.
Resolution: (Average) distance or size of points in a display model of data.
A further important concept to introduce is the LoD Level of detail: in the context of a 3D reconstruction, based on the research objective, a building can be reconstructed with different levels of detail. The spectrum ranges from portraying the geometry alone to reconstructing the details as well.
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Lanjouw, Tijm; Waagen, J. (2021). 4DRL Report Series 1 - Making 4D: principles and standards for virtual reconstruction in the humanities by the 4D Research Lab. University of Amsterdam / Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Journal contribution. https://doi.org/10.21942/uva.14932461.v3
Florentina-Cristina Merciu et al., «Using 3D Modeling to Promote Railway Heritage. The Railway Station of Curtea De Argeş Municipality as Case Study», Journal of Applied Engineering Sciences 11, fasc. 2 (1 dicembre 2021): 121–26, https://doi.org/10.2478/jaes-2021-0016.