Towards building a semantic formalization of (small) historical centres

Historical small urban centres are of increasing interest to different interacting fields such as architectural heritage protection and conservation, urban planning, disaster response, sustainable development and tourism. They are defined at different levels (international, national, regional), by various organizations and standards, incorporate numerous aspects (natural and built environment, infrastructures and open spaces, social, economic, and cultural processes, tangible and intangible heritage) and face various challenges (urbanization, globalization, mass tourism, climate change, etc.). However, their current specification within large-scale geospatial databases is similar to those of urban areas in a broad sense resulting in the loss of many aspects forming this multifaceted concept. The present study considers the available ontologies and data models, coming from various domains and having different granularities and levels of detail, to represent historical small urban centres information. The aim is to define the needs for extension and integration of them in order to develop a multidisciplinary, integrated semantic representation. Relevant conventions and other legislation documents, ontologies and standards for cultural heritage (CIDOC-CRM, CRMgeo, Getty Vocabularies), 3D city models (CityGML), building information models (IFC) and regional landscape plans are analysed to identify concepts, relations, and semantic features that could form a holistic semantic model of historical small urban centres

Achieving interoperability between the CARARE schema for monuments and sites and the Europeana Data Model

Mapping between different data models in a data aggregation context always presents significant interoperability challenges. In this paper, we describe the challenges faced and solutions developed when mapping the CARARE schema designed for archaeological and architectural monuments and sites to the Europeana Data Model (EDM), a model based on Linked Data principles, for the purpose of integrating more than two million metadata records from national monument collections and databases across Europe into the Europeana digital library.Comment: The final version of this paper is openly published in the proceedings of the Dublin Core 2013 conference, see http://dcevents.dublincore.org/IntConf/dc-2013/paper/view/17

BIM semantic-enrichment for built heritage representation

In the built heritage context, BIM has shown difficulties in representing and managing the large and complex knowledge related to non-geometrical aspects of the heritage. Within this scope, this paper focuses on a domain-specific semantic-enrichment of BIM methodology, aimed at fulfilling semantic representation requirements of built heritage through Semantic Web technologies. To develop this semantic-enriched BIM approach, this research relies on the integration of a BIM environment with a knowledge base created through information ontologies. The result is knowledge base system - and a prototypal platform - that enhances semantic representation capabilities of BIM application to architectural heritage processes. It solves the issue of knowledge formalization in cultural heritage informative models, favouring a deeper comprehension and interpretation of all the building aspects. Its open structure allows future research to customize, scale and adapt the knowledge base different typologies of artefacts and heritage activities

THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE THROUGH H-BIM MODELS: HISTORIC DOCUMENTATION WITH A SEMANTIC APPROACH

Abstract. The Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the Architectural Heritage field is constantly proving to be a fertile ground for the experimentation of innovative systems for the enhancement and management of cultural heritage. Regarding to the management of the entire process, the building field is increasing in efficiency from the construction to the management phase; conversely, the approach to historical buildings opens up interesting and heterogeneous scenarios, according to different levels of complexity. The presented work is the result of a collaboration between the Politecnico di Torino and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of Granada: the main scope was to create an historic building information model (H-BIM) of the building that today hosts the Faculty of Architecture (ETSAG), taking into account its historical past from the sixteenth century up to the present day, as the result of many modifications, extensions and different use classifications over time. According to this, the BIM methodology can be considered as a bridge between the archive documentation and the digital model, proving to be an effective tool as a data repository, semantically oriented, not only constituted by geometry, but also by alpha-numerical attributes, improving in effectiveness if it is directly related to formal language object oriented.</p

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

TOWARDS BUILDING A SEMANTIC FORMALIZATION OF (SMALL) HISTORICAL CENTRES

Historical small urban centres are of increasing interest to different interacting fields such as architectural heritage protection and conservation, urban planning, disaster response, sustainable development and tourism. They are defined at different levels (international, national, regional), by various organizations and standards, incorporate numerous aspects (natural and built environment, infrastructures and open spaces, social, economic, and cultural processes, tangible and intangible heritage) and face various challenges (urbanization, globalization, mass tourism, climate change, etc.). However, their current specification within large-scale geospatial databases is similar to those of urban areas in a broad sense resulting in the loss of many aspects forming this multifaceted concept. The present study considers the available ontologies and data models, coming from various domains and having different granularities and levels of detail, to represent historical small urban centres information. The aim is to define the needs for extension and integration of them in order to develop a multidisciplinary, integrated semantic representation. Relevant conventions and other legislation documents, ontologies and standards for cultural heritage (CIDOC-CRM, CRMgeo, Getty Vocabularies), 3D city models (CityGML), building information models (IFC) and regional landscape plans are analysed to identify concepts, relations, and semantic features that could form a holistic semantic model of historical small urban centres

The Heritage Digital Twin: a bicycle made for two. The integration of digital methodologies into cultural heritage research

The paper concerns the definition of a novel ontology for cultural heritage based on the concept of digital twin. The ontology, called Heritage Digital Twin ontology, is a compatible extension of the well-known CIDOC CRM ISO standard for cultural heritage documentation and incorporates all the different documentation systems presently in use for cultural heritage documentation. In the authors' view, it supports documentation interoperability at a higher level than the ones currently in use and enables effective cooperation among different users.Comment: Submitted to Open Research Europe. 30 pages, 9 figure

HBIM for conservation: A new proposal for information modeling

Thanks to its capability of archiving and organizing all the information about a building, HBIM (Historical Building Information Modeling) is considered a promising resource for planned conservation of historical assets. However, its usage remains limited and scarcely adopted by the subjects in charge of conservation, mainly because of its rather complex 3D modeling requirements and a lack of shared regulatory references and guidelines as far as semantic data are concerned. In this study, we developed an HBIM methodology to support documentation, management, and planned conservation of historic buildings, with particular focus on non-geometric information: organized and coordinated storage and management of historical data, easy analysis and query, time management, flexibility, user-friendliness, and information sharing. The system is based on a standalone specific-designed database linked to the 3D model of the asset, built with BIM software, and it is highly adaptable to different assets. The database is accessible both with a developed desktop application, which acts as a plug-in for the BIM software, and through a web interface, implemented to ensure data sharing and easy usability by skilled and unskilled users. The paper describes in detail the implemented system, passing by semantic breaking down of the building, database design, as well as system architecture and capabilities. Two case studies, the Cathedral of Parma and Ducal Palace of Mantua (Italy), are then presented to show the results of the system's application

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications