Valentina Bonora

Geomatics and management of at-risk cultural heritage

The paper starts off by defining cultural heritage and how the concept has extended over time. Then, after attesting to the fragility of our heritage, it continues with the awareness of the need to enable its transmission to posterity. It pinpoints a change in the philosophy of preservation practices, with the preference of prevention over intervention. Then it goes on to define the contribution of geomatics to knowledge, seen as a prerequisite to any decision-making, and to outline the models produced by the techniques classified as part of geomatics: discrete and continuous models, with different balances between the accuracy and efficacy of the descriptions. Some considerations follow on the geomatics tools and techniques now available to document the cultural heritage, with particular reference to the possibility of recording high-resolution data and integrating information from different sensors. The problems presented are illustrated with some examples of applications and the paper concludes by identifying some current research topics.

Advanced procedure for documenting and assessment of Cultural Heritage: from Laser Scanning to Finite Element

This paper discusses an approach for identification of historic buildings that combines Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) survey, Deviation Analysis (DA) and Finite Element (FE) numerical modelling. The methodology is presented through the application to an illustrative case study: an early medieval period brick minaret located in Aksaray (Turkey). Precise direction of inclination, leaning angle, local deviations from circular building shape, deflections from vertical planes, local curvatures and related maps were obtained with high accuracy by DA, based on detailed point cloud 3D mesh model. In addition, differently from traditional approaches in FE analysis, a method for direct transfer of high accuracy TLS based 3D model to FE structural analysis is introduced. The FE model is subsequently employed to interpret and verify structural health of the historic building.

Towers in San Gimignano: Metric Survey Approach

AbstractThis paper presents the contribution of geomatics to the Seismic Risk of Monumental Buildings (RiSEM) project and illustrates the metric survey that was conducted on several towers in San G...