Many projects concerning the protection, conservation, restoration, and dissemination of cultural heritage are being carried out around the world due to its growing interest as a driving force of socio-economic development. The existence of reliable, digital three-dimensional (3D) models that allow for the planning and management of these projects in a remote and decentralized way is currently a growing necessity. There are many software tools to perform the modeling and complete three-dimensional documentation of the intervened monuments. However, the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector has adopted the Building Information Modeling (BIM) standard over the last few decades due to the progress that has been made in its qualities and capabilities. The complex modeling of cultural heritage through commercial BIM software leads to the consideration of the concept of Heritage BIM (H-BIM), which pursues the modeling of architectural elements, according to artistic, historical, and constructive typologies. In addition, H-BIM is considered to be an emerging technology that enables us to understand, document, advertize, and virtually reconstruct the built heritage. This article is a review of the existing literature on H-BIM and its effective implementation in the cultural heritage sector, exploring the effectiveness and the usefulness of the different methodologies that were developed to model families of elements of interest.

A Review of Heritage Building Information Modeling (H-BIM)

Historic Building Information Modelling: performance assessment for diagnosis-aided information modelling and management

The classification of the images taken during the measurement of an architectural asset is an essential task within the digital documentation of cultural heritage. A large number of images are usually handled, so their classification is a tedious task (and therefore prone to errors) and habitually consumes a lot of time. The availability of automatic techniques to facilitate these sorting tasks would improve an important part of the digital documentation process. In addition, a correct classification of the available images allows better management and more efficient searches through specific terms, thus helping in the tasks of studying and interpreting the heritage asset in question. The main objective of this article is the application of techniques based on deep learning for the classification of images of architectural heritage, specifically through the use of convolutional neural networks. For this, the utility of training these networks from scratch or only fine tuning pre-trained networks is evaluated. All this has been applied to classifying elements of interest in images of buildings with architectural heritage value. As no datasets of this type, suitable for network training, have been located, a new dataset has been created and made available to the public. Promising results have been obtained in terms of accuracy and it is considered that the application of these techniques can contribute significantly to the digital documentation of architectural heritage.

Classification of Architectural Heritage Images Using Deep Learning Techniques

The widespread adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the recent emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) applications offer several new insights and decision-making capabilities throughout the life cycle of the built environment. In recent years, the ability of real-time connectivity to online sensors deployed in an environment has led to the emergence of the concept of the Digital Twin of the built environment. Digital Twins aim to achieve synchronization of the real world with a virtual platform for seamless management and control of the construction process, facility management, environment monitoring, and other life cycle processes in the built environment. However, research in Digital Twins for the built environment is still in its nascent stages and there is a need to understand the advances in the underlying enabling technologies and establish a convergent context for ongoing and future research. This paper conducted a systematic review to identify the development of the emerging technologies facilitating the evolution of BIM to Digital Twins in built environment applications. A total of 100 related papers including 23 review papers were selected and reviewed. In order to systematically classify the reviewed studies, the authors developed a five-level ladder categorization system based on the building life cycle to reflect the current state-of-the-art in Digital Twin applications. In each level of this taxonomy, applications were further categorized based on their research domains (e.g., construction process, building energy performance, indoor environment monitoring). In addition, the current state-of-art in technologies enabling Digital Twins was also summarized from the reviewed literature. It was found that most of the prior studies conducted thus far have not fully exploited or realized the envisioned concept of the Digital Twin, and thus classify under the earlier ladder categories. Based on the analysis of the reviewed work and the trends in ongoing research, the authors propose a concept of an advanced Digital Twin for building management as a baseline for further studies.

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From BIM to digital twins: a systematic review of the evolution of intelligent building representations in the AEC-FM industry

Review of built heritage modelling: Integration of HBIM and other information techniques

This article presents a case study on the virtual modeling and reconstruction of Architectural Heritage building. The graphic and semantic information required determining the conservation status of the building, obtained from point clouds and historical and bibliographical data, are combined. The different components are modeled manually by using commercial Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, and used to create a library of parametric elements under the concept of Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM). This represents a solution for the 3D modeling of a wide range of buildings in the same style, due to the flexibility of the modeled elements that can change in shape and proportions, thus adapting to new requirements. Moreover, technical documentation and quantitative and qualitative information can be produced, allowing detailed analysis to be carried out in a remote and multidisciplinary way within the general framework of “Smart heritage”.

/pdf/a-framework-for-using-point-cloud-data-of-heritage-buildings-4q6sw9v7m1.pdf

A Framework for Using Point Cloud Data of Heritage Buildings Toward Geometry Modeling in A BIM Context: A Case Study on Santa Maria La Real De Mave Church

The current approaches for the built heritage documentation and modelling are to collecting, organizing and integrating immovable assets' data into a single graphic-semantic structure using BIM tools. This is the key issue to shifting from point clouds to HBIM. Although fully automation is not possible, practical approaches for the conversion of point clouds into HBIM elements grouped in libraries have recently appeared to meet the particular characteristics of historic buildings in an equivalent way to the libraries of elements already available for contemporary building and civil works. In spite of the graphic information on the built heritage elements is semantically rich in itself, linking the families of modelled elements with the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) as worldwide well-known controlled vocabulary, allows not only the automation but the consistency in cataloguing of required elements, as well as more efficient retrieval of information in a standardized way. This so useful graphic-semantic linking is particularly applied to the Castle of Torrelobaton to make up the HBIM meaningful set of fundamental elements of the defensive architecture from the Middle Age to the Renaissance in Europe, of which this Castle is a representative example.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/364/1/012100/pdf

Facundo José López

Papers

A Review of Heritage Building Information Modeling (H-BIM)

A Framework for Using Point Cloud Data of Heritage Buildings Toward Geometry Modeling in A BIM Context: A Case Study on Santa Maria La Real De Mave Church

Linking HBIM graphical and semantic information through the Getty AAT: Practical application to the Castle of Torrelobatón

Semi-automatic generation of bim models for cultural heritage