3D HERITAGE RECONSTRUCTION AND SCAN-TO-HBIM-TO-XR PROJECT OF THE TOMB OF CAECILIA METELLA AND CAETANI CASTLE, ROME, ITALY

Abstract

2020 meant the loss of 41.5 million visitors for Italian museums, monuments and archaeological sites. The regions that drive tourism and the Italian museum paid the price in terms of visitors and income. In this context, virtual museums have been taking on new forms of interaction, communication and sharing of information, overshadowing traditional applications based on sharing collections through static images or simple panoramas. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) provide the end-user with more innovative learning with the latest technological advances and digital tools. Thanks to the integration of the latest 3D modelling and digital survey techniques with the Visual Programming Language (VPL) and eXteded Reality (XR) development platforms, the authors propose a scan-to-BIM-to-XR method based on different forms of architectural representation, digital survey (terrestrial and aerial) and building archaeology able to transmit the tangible and intangible values of the different types of architectural artefacts, from the large scale (building and its urban context), medium (art collections, sculptures, museum itineraries) up to the small scale (building archaeology) of one of the most important historical buildings in the city of Rome.