Francisco JUAN VIDAL / Isabel MARTÍNEZ ESPEJO
(Instituto de Restauración del Patrimonio, IRP, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain)
Outline: The aim of the this research was to make a virtual anastilosis of the fallen pieces using laser scanner survey for both keystones and parts of the arches still remaining in their place.
Abstract: The Desamparados’Church of Les Coves de Viromá (Castellón, Spain) belonging to the Order Monchs of the Calatrava was built during the XII century. The Church was constantly changing, and in the XV and XVI centuries was when the ribbed vaults were built. Nowadays it appears as small church characterized by the typical gothic vaults despite its former Romanic shape. During the Spanish Civil War the main chapel of the church was used as a pit for a machine gun and it was intentionally destroyed using dynamite: the consequence was that the nine keystones and great part of the voussoirs have fallen on the soil of the chapel.
The methodology is based on the data acquisition of structural elements and architecture by means of different scanner laser equipments (with different sampling and accuracy) and then a second phase focused on data integration by means of different programs.
Thanks to reverse modeling techniques it was possible to determine the bend radius of the fallen voussoirs of the main chapel’s ribbed vault, and also the different angles formed by the keystones.
In that way great part of the ancient shape of the ribbed vault came up as the result of an analytic process that disproved another reconstruction hypothesis base on a traditional survey during the eighties.
The virtual anastilosis is one of the main output of this research conducted inside the Master Oficial de Conservación del Patrimonio Arquitectónico as a final thesis. In the future it will possible to use this study as the base for the real restoration of this ribbed vault.
Keywords: Laser Scanner Survey, Virtual Anastylosis