Survey and representation of vaults and cupolas: An overview on some relevant Italian UNESCO sites

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an ongoing research on the survey of vaulted structures of important Italian monumental buildings belonging to UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Ravenna, Rome and Florence). The three case studies deal with various problems of documentation and representation of vaults and domes from different points of view: the first example is concerned with the conversion of apparent color texture from Structure from Motion applications into different maps able to represent heterogeneous BRDF behaviors; the second one illustrates the problem of virtual reconstruction of a partially collapsed ancient cupola using an integrated approach, and finally the last case study describes a technique for developing the eight sides of a textured mesh representing an octagonal frescoed dome. Therefore, the output of different examples, achieved with the combination of several applications, is presented to suggest a general overview regarding the documentation of vaulted spaces.