Three renaissance vaults in Milan. cultural heritage and digital workflows for BIM modelling

Abstract

The HBIM approach (Historic Building Information Modeling) arouses an increasing interest in the survey of the existing, by virtue of the numerous opportunities that it offers with regard to the optimization of management, maintenance and protection of cultural heritage. However the artefacts with a high cultural-architectural appeal are characterized, in general, by a considerable of geometries’ complexity, which cannot always be perfectly reconstructed through a common BIM workflow. The aim of this research, focused on the study of the vaults of the Renaissance cloister of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan (designed by Bramante at the end of the 500), is precisely to identify and test different workflows to create a mathematical model (starting from a point cloud obtained through laser scanner) that reproduces the real geometries of the case study and that, at the same time, can be parameterized in a BIM environment.