The Drawn Landscape in 3D Databases: The Management of Complexity and Representation in the Historical City

Abstract

The complex structure of landscape has motivated recent research into representative systems capable of expressing the complex relationships present within an urban place. Updating the ways of its reading, research has attempted to identify more or less complex urban scenarios, profoundly different from each other both from a formal, cultural and perceptive point of view. The contribution presents examples of methods of analysis, digital acquisition and processing of documentation systems of these landscapes, in order to analyse not only formal differences, but also to structure a documentation and representation methodology for problems of management and planning of the city and territory. The virtual space configures itself through a systematic and structured drawing, demonstrating how interactive reality-based digital models can constitute valid systems of representation of the real landscape. The virtual space maintains relationships and exchanges data with its user, simulating reality and becoming a place where project and experimentation are set in a simplified form to explain critical readings useful for identifying key values that will guide the project. 3D models, together with databases, configure landscapes that outline the future of research through the study of systems of interaction between man, drawing and virtual space. In particular, the contribution deals with the three-dimensional representation of the historical center of the city of Pavia and the territorial relationship with its province, analysing documentation systems that, through digital drawing, contribute to the enhancement and awareness of values of urban landscape heritage. 3D models, used as planning tools, become elements of cohesion between space and time, bringing to light the Roman and Longobard city, till its current configuration, laying the foundations for the project of the city of the future. Each formal choice will be oriented on values of conservation, restoration and interpretation of the historical and cultural dimension of the city.

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