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The paper explores the integration of Geomatics and architectural surveying into the educational context of Geomatic for Built Heritage Conservation course within the Master on Architectural Design, in which a multidisciplinary teaching approach is applied, emphasizing the importance of holistic knowledge encompassing historical, geometric, material, and structural aspects for the conservation and restoration of architectural heritage.A central theme is the role of Geomatics and 3D modelling in historical built heritage documentation, assuming the creation of three-dimensional models as a foundation for integrating various thematic data, enabling interdisciplinary studies, and facilitating knowledge representation and communication.The paper delves into the challenges and strategies of semantic 3D modelling. It discusses the necessity for a flexible and layered informational model, integrating spatial, geometric, and semantic data. The complexity of semantic annotation is explored, considering the subjectivity and cultural context inherent in identifying and describing architectural elements. The educational approach employed in fostering critical thinking among students, particularly in interpreting cultural heritage issues related to documentation and recording, is presented.A case study involving Pitti Palace in Florence is considered. An attempt to implement the Getty Vocabulary on Art & Architecture Thesaurus for semantic annotation is described, emphasizing the need for a coherent alignment between the 3D model and controlled vocabulary hierarchy. The study concludes with insights from the student's experience, highlighting the difficulties in aligning spatial and semantic elements within existing controlled vocabularies and suggesting avenues for future developments in refining these vocabularies for enhanced spatial-semantic coherence in 3D modelling applications.

Cultural heritage digitization and 3D modelling processes are mainly based on laser scanning and digital photogrammetry techniques to produce complete, detailed and photorealistic three-dimensional surveys: geometric as well as chromatic aspects, in turn testimony of materials, work techniques, state of preservation, etc., are documented using digitization processes. The paper explores the topic of 3D documentation for conservation purposes; it analyses how geomatics contributes in different steps of a restoration process and it presents an overview of different uses of 3D models for the conservation and enhancement of the cultural heritage. The paper reports on the project to digitize the earthenware frieze of the Ospedale del Ceppo in Pistoia (Italy) for 3D documentation, restoration work support, and digital and physical reconstruction and integration purposes. The intent to design an exhibition area suggests new ways to take advantage of 3D data originally acquired for documentation and scientific purposes.

The description of a historic building can be made by considering many different aspects: stylistic, technological, formal, function-related, etc. In Architecture, as in any artistic form, intangible elements also play an essential role and are closely related to individual interpretation; therefore, achieving an objective description is challenging, and several efforts have been undertaken over time to reach the goal.Nested hierarchical or complex multi-dimensional relationship structures can be defined to represent various interrelationships between a huge variety of elements and their properties. Categorisation, standards definitions and adoptions, data modelling, etc., should come after the data collection phase to adequately support the sharing of disparate datasets and thus facilitate communication between experts in different domains and improve knowledge dissemination.The paper considers different approaches in the built heritage representation, then presents the ad hoc data model initially adopted in the Pitti Palace documentation project, where a comprehensive and highly detailed 3D digitisation project was recently carried out, and finally proposes to map it into widely adopted standard, such are CityGML and IndoorGML.

The ambon by Giovanni Pisano in the church of Sant'Andrea in Pistoia (Italy) consists of a hexagonal platform raised on slender columns standing on bases and sculptures with different heights. In the 17th century, it was disassembled and placed in a different location and, also for this reason, is currently in an endangered condition. As part of a multi-disciplinary programme of investigations and monitoring, a 3D survey was requested. The challenging aspect of the survey is related with the material of the work of art, as it is completely made of different kinds of white and red marbles. These materials are translucent and light diffuses through them, so the laser beam scatters beyond the surface and biases measurements in an unpredictable way. Tests were carried out, comparing two scanners with different characteristics and digital photogrammetry. The results show significant differences between the three technologies, identify the best solution in relation to the desired objectives, and highlight how different acquisition techniques affect the suitability of models for subsequent applications.

Digital and spatial techniques, such as reality-based surveying and 3D modelling, have long been used in archaeology. However, in recent years the use of these techniques has gained importance also in the history of architecture, a discipline in which these data can help to interpret traditionally used, but often incomplete, written sources (Tucci et al. 2021; Fiorini et al. 2023).This paper is about an aspect of the eighteenth-century renovations of Palazzo Vecchio. It focuses attention on a small terrace that runs alongside the exterior facade of the Sala dei Cinquecento and to which there is no entrance. The question this paper seeks to answer is: why during eighteenth-century renovations it was decided to exclude the existing entrance to the terrace from the accessible spaces? Using geomatics techniques, it has been possible to identify the location of the enclosed spaces in relation to other parts of the building (Tucci, 2017).In accordance with the criteria of Spatial Humanities, the present research is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach based on the analysis and interpretation of data obtained from archival sources (Archivio Storico Comunale di Firenze, Fototeca Comunale di Firenze, Archivio Centrale di Stato di Roma, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Gabinetto fotografico degli Uffizi, Catalogo Generale Beni Culturali, Biblioteca Nazionale), the consultation of relevant published iconographic sources in libraries, and the interpretation of 3D data and architectural elements discovered during the onsite survey of the area between the inner and outer southern façades of the Sala dei Cinquecento.The first part of this essay focus on the southern façade of the Sala dei Cinquecento and aims to demonstrate to what extent the Carlo Falconieri’s modification altered the general appearance of the façade. The second part, aims to clarify the architectural phases or aspects of the southern façade of the Sala dei Cinquecento before Falconieri’s works.

In the last decades, surveys produced with geomatic techniques are increasingly used for the study and conservation of the built heritage because they automatically collect large amounts of data with an accuracy and objectivity that could not be achieved with traditional techniques. As in other fields of digital and spatial humanities, the combination of spatial data with archival and secondary sources provides new tools for reconstructing the history, construction, and transformation of a historic architecture.The new digital survey of Pitti Palace, which was carried out between 2019 and 2021, has revealed aspects neglected by previous surveys and historical studies. Pitti Palace is the largest historical civil building in Florence. In the 16th century, Bartolomeo Ammannati carried out important extensions, including the so-called \"spiral staircase\", one of the most important staircases in the palace. This staircase, of which there is little documentation, although it is considered a masterpiece, was demolished at the beginning of the 19th century by Pasquale Poccianti to make way for the \"New Secondary Staircase\", on which previous studies have focused mainly on stylistic and decorative aspects.Using digital spatial data as a primary source, the research aimed to explain the construction history of the new staircase built by Poccianti, allowing a precise comparison between the archive documents and the actual geometry of the building elements.It also highlights previously undocumented features, including the evidence for the Ammannati staircase and the important changes made during the construction of the new staircase. The article shows how the insertion of the new staircase profoundly altered the design, structure and layout of a wing of the Pitti Palace. It also suggests how a more transdisciplinary and holistic approach helps the study of historical architecture.

In the twentieth century, the physical reproduction of a work of art was considered only a business activity and a replica would rarely be on display in a museum. In recent decades, however, as high-resolution digital sampling and fabrication techniques have become popular in all fields, the various ways in which they can be applied to cultural heritage are leading to a more articulated approach to their use. They are no longer considered fakes or imitations, but as artefacts specially designed and built to facilitate the dissemination of heritage or perform simulations without damaging the originals. This case study describes the process of creating the replica of Michelangelo's David that has been displayed in the Italian Pavilion at EXPO 2020 in Dubai. Starting with the planning of the survey, the instruments and facilities used, and the fieldwork process are described. The resulting data have been then processed to produce a model optimised for replication on a large format additive manufacturing printer. Finally, the challenges of processing and managing ultra-high-resolution data are outlined.

The Tile Calorimeter (TileCal) is the central hadronic calorimeter of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In 2026, the LHC will undergo a series of upgrades leading to the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), which will provide an instantaneous luminosity 5 to 7 times larger than the nominal LHC design value. The ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Phase-II Upgrade will completely replace the readout electronics with a new clock distribution and readout architecture with a fully digital trigger system to process more complex physics events while maintaining the trigger selection efficiency. The upgraded on-detector electronics will transmit detector data every 25 ns to the Compact Processing Modules (CPMs) in the counting rooms, which handle real-time energy reconstruction, trigger data transmission, and clock distribution. A total of 128 CPMs hosted in 32 ATCA carriers will read out the entire detector with a total data bandwidth of 40 Tbps. Each CPM, equipped with a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale KU115 FPGA and six FireFly modules, processes data from two TileCal modules, transmitting both reconstructed and raw data to TDAQi and FELIX systems. In addition, the CPM distributes the accelerator clock and configuration commands to the DaughterBoards in the on-detector. This work presents the current status of the CPM developments for the HL-LHC and the roadmap towards its installation in the ATLAS experiment.

In recent years, the GeCo Laboratory has undertaken numerous projects to digitalize vast and complex buildings; the specific nature of the different projects has resulted in a case-by-case approach, each time working on past experiences and updating not only the hardware and software tools but also the management and processing methods. This paper presents the workflow followed for the survey of the Fortress of Saint John the Baptist in Florence, an on-going interdisciplinary project. Presently Florence’s main trade fair congress centre, at the same time it hosts various buildings that bear witness to the fortress’s life-history, combining constructions from the Medici and Lorraine eras with recently built exhibition facilities. Now new research has been required due to the realization of new pavilions and the regeneration of the whole complex. This has included a critical survey, material testing, diagnostic investigations and stratigraphic analyses to define the building’s state of preservation. The working group comprises specialists from different institutions, amongst which the Italian Military Geographic Institute, the University of Florence, the National Research Council Institute for the Preservation and Enhancement of the Cultural Heritage, and the Florence City Council.

Current close-range photogrammetry makes it possible to obtain 3-D models from imagery acquired with off-the-shelf digital cameras or other low-cost devices and processed with affordable software or apps in an almost automatic way. For this reason, a wider and wider public (often without a specific training, as archaeologists, architects, landscape planners, digital artists) is using these tools and their outcomes in many fields. However, the drawback of its ease of use is that photogrammetry is often used without any critical awareness of the metric quality of the results. Therefore, it is necessary to bridge the growing gap between the spread of photogrammetric techniques and their use through appropriate educational processes. The paper presents and explain the results of the project “Education and training resources on digital photogrammetry”, financed in 2018 by ISPRS as part of the “Educational and Capacity Building Initiative” programme. The project, after evaluating the current teaching methodologies and techniques, is producing and sharing original teaching materials (like videos and datasets) on digital photogrammetry. The aim is to transform the traditional transmissive didactic model in a newer one in which the students have an active role and improve their proficiencies solving actual case studies in practice. This induces students to rethink and better understand all the steps of the photogrammetric project design, acquisition and processing but above all to acquire greater skills to critically evaluate the acquired data and results.