Documentation of historical building via virtual tour: The complex building of baths in Strasbourg

Abstract

The virtual visits exist for several years and rest on open source or professional software packages allowing to realize complete animations. The historic buildings are often fragile, sometimes difficultly and only partially accessible. It is the complex case of the building of the municipal baths of Strasbourg, France, object of this study. It is thus interesting to use the technologies of the virtual visits to document a historic building. If we content ourselves only of panoramic images, the visitor cannot take completely advantage of the site, especially if he does not know it in advance. It is a question of proposing to the visitor a guided tour, constrained, allowing him to move on to all the recommended places. Then to supply him further information on the most significant parts and to propose him images of archive to make comparisons. Of course, if he wants to walk alone in and around the building, he will have the leisure of it, but at his own risk. To realize such a visit, the paper shows the various necessary stages of elaboration, in particular by beginning with the writing of a scenario of the visit. This project written in several hands allowed to combine the knowledge of diverse actors working in the field of the inventory and of the heritage valorisation.