Articles by Simone Garagnani

The general digital reconstruction of the necropolis in Numana was carried on following a methodology targeted to a quick survey at different scales: from the single ceramic or artifact to the whole archaeological landscape. Fostering the application of common computer graphics techniques, an easily replicable process was set up, in order to produce 3D models mainly adopted for archaeological analysis and collection of data that could have been acquired in different times, with different approaches.

The paper deals with the development of a novel methodology, named ArchaeoBIM, aimed at the creation of digital models representing no longer existing buildings, starting from the available information collected from the archaeological contexts. The process is inferred by the Building Information Modeling used in the contemporary building industry, where different disciplines converge into digital models. The achieved models meet some of the cutting-edge issues of the Virtual Archaeology, i.e. validation, management of data, simulation. These products answer to important needs in the fields of research, conservation and dissemination and could be considered as archaeological records themselves.

Introduction to the International Conference KAINUA 2017.

The widespread use of technologies and processes aimed at information management is one of the main trends in today’s building industry. Collaboration, coordination and validation of design results are fostered by software and workflows that involve many disciplines. Taking into account these premises, this paper deals with the application of such a paradigm to the archaeological and architectural fields. The application to the particular case study of the Etruscan town of Kainua aspires to be exemplary, since it is referred to different metric scales, from the building to the urban settlement. The digital reconstruction of the whole town, which can be explored and studied by means of Virtual Reality, was validated from a philological point of view using an original interdisciplinary approach called ArchaeoBIM, i.e. a methodology that encompasses the information flow among different disciplines with the same interest in understanding, and virtually reconstructing, lost realities. Using this method, architectural proportions brought by existing literature, physical behaviours of materials and components, layouts of rooms and spaces regulated by rituals or historic traditions are collected in a model that is able to represent morphologies, analysis and functions. This model, basically a geometric database linking heterogeneous documents, can be used in many different ways, from analytic abstractions to static simulations, from solar analysis to visual renderings. It becomes a common language for information exchange among scholars and users interested in the dissemination and study of the cultural heritage.

The model of the Tuscanic Temple of Uni in Marzabotto, recently discovered, has been a common ground for engineering and archaeological studies, thanks to the processing of a Building Information Modeling (BIM). Beside the historic and archaeological analysis, the innovation of this study concerns the examination of the Etruscan temple as a three-dimensional building, with the use of technologies which impact on the architectural reliability of the model, and the design of a new method of Experimental Archaeology based on a virtual approach. The uniqueness of this approach lies in the study of original elements at the starting point of the building process, that consist in foundations or spoliated structures (i.e. negative evidences), over the clues from the historical and scientific literature. To better define this distinctive working process, the expression ArchaeoBIM has been proposed. With this expression we underline the common BIM matrix in the data management through integrated analytical models, applied to a particular aspect of the archaeological research.