Carlo BATTINI
(Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Progettazione dell’Architettura, Italy)
Outline: Building a system of alpha-numeric data and three-dimensional models.
The Web has become a new medium which can display geographical information in rich forms and offer user-friendly interfaces. One of the promising trends in current Geographical Information System (GIS) is the use of Web 3D technology, especially X3D.
The research starts from the need to explore new systems of representation and data management with the aim of increasing and sharing knowledge of architecture and the environment. Dynamic representations, relational databases, devices for data access are the main tools of this research.
Data management systems have been intensely studied and greatly developed in Computer Applications to Archaeology, since they encouraged the diffused ambition to manage huge and heterogeneous archaeological data sets. One of the most promising perspectives of these systems was a strong integration of alphanumeric and three-dimensional data, but as a matter of fact past solutions rarely achieved satisfying results. New approaches to these goals will be discussed in this paper, focusing on a new Data Base Management System (3D Web Survey) and related tools intended to improve visualization and analysis of physical and stratigraphic relations by means of 3d models. 3D Web Survey is a modular system which manages alphanumeric, graphic, photographic data and 3d model. Its hierarchical structure fits very well the archaeological research workflow: it is organized in two main areas allowing users to access, edit and manage operations of three main phases: a) data acquiring (data), b) data analysing (elaborate). The case study of this research is Pieve a Socana, a little church near Arezzo (Italy).
Keywords: Digital, Databases, Internet/Web, Surveying