Digital Environment for Remote Visual Inspection and Condition Assessment of Architectural Heritage

The methods and the tools aimed to documenting and analysing the historical built heritage often follow different paths according to several disciplines involved in the knowledge process. Being aware about the importance that the scientific community confers to 3D digital representation of the buildings, this tool can play a role of a hub able to relate different data and languages. Therefore, the 3D digital model represents the privileged tool to ensure effective management of data derived from geometric, formal, architectural, diagnostic, archaeological and structural features, all aimed to subsequent restoration interventions. Despite the certain advantages associated to the use of this tool, the time to produce 3D models often conflicts with the need to document assets in emergency situations. In order to overcome this issue, the testing of a tool, the virtual tour of the artefacts, has been carried out; the tour is placed in a time phase between the survey and the construction of the digital model, representing a rapid way to geolocalize, view and record data by remote visual inspection. The virtual tour, obtained from the 360° photos deriving from the survey campaigns with the laser scanner, properly processed, allows you to remotely record the detected data on them, for example the damage analysis. The virtual tour, suitably enriched with contents, therefore turns into a connecting hub, and represents a versatile way of collaboration between various professionals, also lending itself to visualizing and recording information that can be implemented over time and which, if organized according to a logical and functional architecture, they provide a real opportunity for tracing the temporal evolution of the degradation phenomena on the wall surfaces.