2
Basics and Definitions
Abstract
This chapter introduces key concepts of 3D modeling in the humanities. A 3D model
can represent a great variety of objects. The objects of 3D modeling of historical
architecture are lost or extant buildings, their modifications, and designs that were
never executed. These buildings are as much part of the cultural heritage as their plans.
The chapter begins with a survey of source-based historical knowledge as the basis of
analysis, historic interpretation, and reconstruction of any historical situation. It then
addresses modeling in general as a scientific practice, its use in architecture, and the
advantages of its digitization.
Guiding questions
• What are the basic definitions and concepts related to 3D modeling?
• Why and how does it with historic architecture and cultural heritage?
• What are sources, and what is their purpose?
• How is reconstruction done?
• Why model, and how can one do this in a scientific way?
• What is a model? (in general, and in architecture)
• What are the conditions for digital 3D modeling?
© The Author(s) 2024
S. Münster et al., Handbook of Digital 3D Reconstruction of Historical Architecture,
Synthesis Lectures on Engineers, Technology, & Society 28,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43363-4_2
13
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2 Basics and Definitions
Basic terms
• Historic architecture
• Cultural heritage
• Sources
• Reconstruction
• Modeling and models
• 3D reconstruction versus 3D modeling
• Simulation
2.1
Architectural History
Architectural history explores buildings, constructions, and structures, deals with urban
planning, and analyses architectural theory, discourse, and media such as architectural
drawings and models. It also explores the people, groups, and networks that were behind
all this. Architectural history thus regards architecture as a cultural phenomenon.
As a scientific discipline, architectural history has close ties to art history, archeology,
and architectural education. It is thus interdisciplinary and can include social sciences,
economics, or technical sciences. This great diversity of disciplines yields a very wide
range of possible research questions. As a historical discipline, architectural history deals
with the past, including the recent past, and explores things such as appearance and form,
placement, functions of built environments, and the influences of people such as patrons
or users, on developments in the history of style, of immanent meanings or changes in
meaning. In other words, it tries to reconstruct the historical context. In this way, an object
is located temporally, spatially, socially, and discursively.
It is important to note that buildings have rarely come down to us as they originally
looked, but that they are subject to permanent changes. These changes can be formally
visible (e.g., early modern parts added to a medieval building), and purely functional
(e.g., an 18th-century monastery building redeveloped for university purposes). For a
well-founded historical analysis, the original state must therefore be examined. And if
this has not been preserved, it must be reconstructed—whether ideally as pure thought, in
descriptive texts, or materially in an architectural drawing or model, either as an analog
or a digital reconstruction. This last option is much more immediately vivid—and is the
topic of this handbook.
Architecture is a built social order and a reflection of humanity’s thoughts and actions.
Buildings with religious, political, profane, or other uses embody an important part of
the cultural heritage of human societies. Due to its (mostly) physical nature, architecture
belongs to a tangible cultural heritage. Even architectural projects that remained on paper
belong to the cultural heritage, but in this case to the intangible one. Other examples
2.1
Architectural History
15
of intangible cultural heritage are music, dance, customs, or workflows, while natural
heritage comprises for example mountains or caves. Representational buildings, whether
religious like temples and churches or secular like princely palaces or parliaments, often
demonstrate the cultural achievements to which their creators dedicate the most effort
and material resources. It is not uncommon for these buildings to be erected on symbolic
sites, whether they acquire this special meaning before or after they have been built.
Further reading: Architecture as part of cultural heritage
Architecture is part of our cultural heritage. In general, cultural heritage can be
understood as traces and expressions from the past, which are used in and influence
contemporary society [2]. Cultural heritage can be regarded as property that a person cannot inherit; instead, it must be acquired, e.g., by a society that perceives it
as valuable [3]. While cultural heritage traditionally focuses on tangible objects, a
broader understanding adds intangible heritage (e.g., dances, customs, workflows)
and natural heritage (Fig. 2.1). Architecture, understood as the human-built environment, is the manifestation of social practices and therefore relates to both, tangible
and intangible cultural heritage. It serves different purposes and users, takes on
different shapes and sizes, and depends on different conditions, but always serves
human demands. As diverse as architecture is, so are the possibilities for dealing
with it in the sciences and in the humanities. There are some great examples of 3D
modeling of intangible cultural heritage, regarding customs and daily life [4, 5] in
past cultures [6], but the focus here is on tangible heritage.
Cultural Heritage –
e.g., monuments
Intangible
Cultural Heritage – e.g.,
rites
Natural Cultural
Heritage – e.g.,
mountains
Digital Cultural Heritage – e.g., computer
games
Fig. 2.1 Types of cultural heritage [1] (Images: Münster (left-middle), right: https://www.eur
opeana.eu/de/item/916118/S_TEK_object_TEKS0057154, accessed on 1.2.2023)
Another important concept is the digital (cultural) heritage, of which digital 3D
models form part. It comprises technologies to preserve, research, and communicate
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2 Basics and Definitions
cultural heritage [7] and it includes materials like texts and images, created digitally
or digitized, as well as digital resources of human knowledge or expression (e.g.,
cultural, educational, or scientific) [8]. This latter facet comprises various digital
technologies to study cultural heritage [9]. Around those topics, various scholarly
communities have formed during the past few decades such as digital humanities,
digital archeology, or digital history studies [10].
In human history, the decay or deliberate destruction of such symbolic architecture is
just as constant as the attempts to commemorate it, to preserve its lost meaning or to
charge the sites with a new one. Although physical reconstruction is the most consistent
and effective form of remembrance here, it remains the exception not least because of
the high construction costs. Other forms predominate, such as remembrance in rites, oral
traditions, texts, and pictures.
Forms of remembrance that focus on the visual presentation of the destroyed object,
primarily drawings and haptic models, can be considered close to the methods of architecture. For a long time, they were the only way for the public to remember buildings that
no longer existed or of which only a few remains survived. Information and communication technology has revolutionized the representation and communication of architecture.
Graphic data processing has achieved a vividness in the representation of destroyed buildings, especially in interiors, that has rarely been achieved by other media until now.
The digital 3D models of historical architecture which resulted from this process are
the subject of this book.
Further reading: Research on 3D reconstruction in general Theoretical foundations and epistemological recommendations of 3D modeling of cultural heritage have
been studied for a long time, e.g., within various EU projects [11, 12]; on a national
level in Germany by the task group for 3D reconstruction of the DHd association [13],
the Digital Art History workgroup [14], and the DFG Network for 3D reconstruction
of architectural history [15], and by numerous recent publications [16–18].
2.2
Reconstruction
Reconstruction is the process of re-creating something that no longer exists or is unknown,
for example, a lost work of music, literature, or art, a destroyed building, or a sequence
of events (Fig. 2.2). The term reconstruction describes both the process and its outcome.
The concept of reconstruction can be traced back to the Renaissance and from its very
beginning, it was closely connected with archeology. Shortly before his death, the famous
Italian painter and architect Raffaello Santi (1483–1520) developed a memorandum for
2.2
Reconstruction
3D Reconstruction of a nonextant (destroyed) church
17
3D Reconstruction of a never realized
(planned) garden.
3D Digitization of a poƩery artefact.
Fig. 2.2 3D modeling versus state of existence (Images: Münster)
an archeological survey of the ancient ruins of Rome. The aim was not to document
the buildings in their ruined state, because as such they seemed to be insufficient like
“bones without flesh,” but to present them in their concluded original appearance, this by
using ortho-projected plans [19].
Like Santi’s one, a reconstruction always needs to be based on sources, which we need
to analyze and interpret. Otherwise, it would be no more than imagination or subjective
fantasy. Yet, the interpretative part of the process leads to an inevitable characteristic of a
reconstruction: it is hypothetical. Things that have passed are gone and irretrievable. We
must always be aware of this: when we reconstruct, we create anew.
Motives to reconstruct can be manifold, and it is important to be aware that they may
be ideologically underpinned. Destruction, be they unaccountable as in natural disasters,
wanton and deliberate as in wars, accidental or caused by negligence as in fires, is often
the occasion to physically rebuild a building or parts of it, following the lost forms as
faithfully as the current state of mind allows, desires, or even forbids.
Reconstruction is closely linked to the idea of the original—and Western culture holds
the physical original in particularly high esteem. We often value the reconstruction much
less and tend to criticize it more easily. Therefore, we must carefully and consciously
distinguish whether a reconstruction was carried out from the ground up, including the
time interval between the reconstruction and the destruction, or whether only parts of
a building were reconstructed—this is where the concept of restoration begins to blur.
And we must consider the significance of buildings for cultural identity, as well as the
ideologies and mentalities that led to a reconstruction.
Reconstruction is not limited to the 1:1 translation of physical remains into a virtual
model. What has been lost can be reconstructed in writing descriptive texts, visually as
drawings, or haptically in scaled-down models. These forms have long been used by
architectural history researchers. With the expansion of new media in recent decades,
digital, virtual reconstructions create new technical capabilities to expand, modify, and
add.
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2 Basics and Definitions
Digital media reconstruction of historical architecture is part of the digital humanities.
According to the Principles of Seville, virtual reconstruction is a digital process that is
fundamentally analogous to physical reconstruction. “A virtual model is used to visually
reconstruct a building or object built by humans at a certain time in the past, starting
from the available physical evidence of these buildings or objects, scientifically justified
comparative conclusions and, in general, all the studies carried out by archaeologists
and other experts related to archaeological and historical science” [20, p. 2]. Of course,
this does not apply to archaeology and antiquities alone, but to all historical disciplines.
Medieval archaeology is therefore just as affected as the restoration and conservation of
historical monuments, buildings, and objects.
Virtual or digital reconstruction not only strives to restore an artifact to how it looked at
the time of its creation but can also reconstruct successive phases of use of an object and
thus the sequence of building states. Reconstructing lost or altered architecture virtually
using digital models brings an enormous advantage for visualization: a digital model is
easier to change than a physical (i.e., material-based) model. The visualization is no longer
static but can be dynamically adapted to different angles and converted into different formats. Digital 3D reconstructions of historical architecture support the understanding and
research of lost or disappeared building conditions, sources, and historical objects. During a digital reconstruction, the provenance, consistency, and correspondence of sources
are checked and discrepancies—for example between ground plans and elevations or
vedutas—are revealed (→ Scholarly Method).
2.3
Sources
Sources are the very basis for any study in architectural history and consequently for every
reconstruction. This section explains the different categories and types of sources and the
methods for their use. It gives insights into collaboration between disciplines involved in
reconstruction processes (the humanities and technical sciences) which all use the same
sources, with different methods and aims.
All historical research is based on sources [21]. Sources are a specific class of cultural heritage items that provide information about past events, phenomena, or objects.
In most cases they are tangible (e.g., administration files from archives, historic letters,
architectural drawings, plans, or old photographs, inscriptions and other traces on the
object itself), but they can be intangible (e.g., oral history provided by former users or
inhabitants of a building).
Sources are always biased, by the creators’ intention or limited view. Understanding
by means of sources is therefore never a neutral act, but requires critical reflection [22],
as formalized by source criticism, which analyzes and interprets historical sources e.g., in
their contemporary historical context.
2.3
Sources
19
Further reading: Sources for 3D reconstructions
Architectural drawings: if available, orthoprojected plans and drawings are the most important source for geometrical reconstructions
of non-extant architecture and allow unbiased
access to geometrical properties.
Cadaster and maps: ground plots and cadastral information provide directly measurable
information, although mostly of lower detail.
Historical photographs and vedutas enable a
natural impression of an architectural object
and contain information about materials. In
contrast to plans, geometrical information is
distorted by perspective.
Material evidence (e.g., archaeological remains, similar buildings): if available, physical remains contain comprehensive information about geometries, materiality, and
behavior of an object. In many cases they enable (semi-)automated 3D digitization.
Geographical information (e.g., elevation
models) are usually very stable, less changedependent, can provide information, e.g., about
outer dimensions of building or an arrangement of floors.
Textual descriptions are in some cases the
only sources available or can provide unique
information e.g., about spatial arrangements or
materials.
Fig. 2.3 Sources for 3D reconstructions (Images: P. H. Jahn, ThULB, Münster)
Sources are classified by the type of textual, image, or audiovisual media, or object
sources such as physical remains of buildings [23, 24]. For 3D reconstructions the most
relevant and often-used sources are visual (architectural drawings, views, photographs,
etc.), textual (historic descriptions, files from building administrations, etc.), and physical
(the still existing object or preserved parts of it) (Fig. 2.3).
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2 Basics and Definitions
Technical data from the natural sciences and engineering are also sources. Laser scans
and surveys record the actual state of a building. They can serve as sources for the humanities (e.g., to review historical plan sources). The scientific advantage of a digital 3D model
of historical architecture is interdisciplinary collaboration [25]. A digital 3D model is
often created within a cooperation of several fields (3D modeling, architectural history,
monument preservation, surveying technology, etc.) (→ Scholarly Community).
Another main distinction is between primary and secondary sources. Primary sources
date from the period being studied or were created by participants to describe the object
being studied. They reflect the individual view of the author [22]; examples are drafts,
building surveys, or texts such as personal diaries. A secondary source describes, interprets, or analyses a historical object, event, or phenomenon (e.g., a historic text which
describes an even older [primary] source that no longer exists). Scientific texts about an
architectural object are secondary literature. Occasionally, tertiary sources are mentioned:
these are published in collections of material based on secondary (or primary) sources,
e.g., compilations or (digital) repositories of sources [26, 27]. Tertiary sources thus include
all the contemporary analogies and logics which are often used to bridge gaps of primary
sources. In architecture, this includes typologies, building styles, and construction logics.
A distinction should be drawn between (a) 3D digitization—also called retrodigitization—where an extant cultural heritage object is a source, and (b) digital 3D
reconstruction—also called source-based reconstruction, where the modeled object
can only be envisioned through other sources describing it (e.g., planning documents
describing a never-realized, destroyed, or altered object) [28, 29] (→ 3D Modelling).
Sources serve to critically review the model (or its process of creation), and to falsify
the content of a source (i.e., as an additional means for source criticism). An example
would be a digital 3D reconstruction based on laser scanning, a technique that provides a
very precise image of an object that still exists or based on exact recent building measurements. If this model is then compared with historical plans, their accuracy can be checked:
whether they were measured as precisely as today’s building surveys or only copied from
older plans without checking the spatial dimensions, etc.1 The conclusions we can draw
from comparing a constructed 3D model and historical plans can complement, confirm,
or refute each other. In the course of a digital reconstruction, not only the provenance but
also the consistency of the sources is checked. For example, discrepancies between floor
plans and elevations or vedutas can be uncovered. The most fundamental prerequisite for
a critical review is the disclosure of the sources and scientific reasoning underlying the
model and documenting the creation process of the 3D reconstruction.
1 This also works the other way around: reconstructed buildings (e.g., after partial destruction) are
measured and compared to historical sources.
2.4
Models and Modeling
21
Further reading: Linking models and sources as a research prospect Source data
should be embedded into 3D models to develop new research questions and to generate new insights. Since the source basis for creating models (architectural drawings,
photographs, texts, etc.) is now increasingly available in digital formats, they could
be directly incorporated into or linked to the models [30, 31]. The digital 3D model
thus acquires a platform character and can provide:
• A working space in which the function, affiliation, or interpretation of individual
elements (picture, plan, written document) can be tested.
• Access to further media formats (image and text sources), which allow the model
to be assessed.
• Presentation of an overall result (or interpretation of only a section, by hiding
certain areas).
2.4
Models and Modeling
Why do modeling? And why digitally and in 3D? The aim of this section is to understand
the basic way of thinking when modeling is practiced. The term derives from physical
models and develops from downscaled ones used since at least the late Middle Ages in
the arts and in architecture to visualize a draft physically, haptically, and spatially.
Modeling as a principle dates back to Antiquity, for example, downscaled models
of farms as symbolic burial objects in the Old Egyptian funeral cult which refer symbolically to the alimentation of the defunct [32, pp. 7–8, figs. 1.8–1.12, 33, pp. 49–51,
Fig. 2.2]—and the world of toys with which mankind is traditionally amusing and teaching its children is well known to everybody. But in its wider sense modeling is a special
procedure or approach to generate and/or communicate knowledge using simplified representations of reality. Simplifying to gain knowledge seems paradoxical, because how
should knowledge increase by such a reducing process like simplification? Vice versa,
simplification separates the important aspects from the unimportant ones. In other words:
models focus on the task of research or learning by reducing complexity (Fig. 2.4). Only
certain properties of the task are modeled as these are bearers of meaning and thus considered. That is why modeling, in general, means creating “the (simplified) replica of an
original system” (or an object) which must be “sufficiently similar to the original system
with respect to the purpose of its realization” (author translation of [34], p. 18).
An established explanatory scheme of models in three fundamental aspects is provided
by the so-called general model theory as codified by Stachowiak [35]. Also, according to
this theory, a model represents a simplified or reduced version of an original, but added
is the fundamental aspect of the subjective and pragmatic purpose of each modeling [35,
pp. 131–133]:
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2 Basics and Definitions
Fig. 2.4 Scientific modeling with the didactic aim: A piece of a DNA model created by the Garvan
Institute of Medical Research (Image: Theodore Barons, 2014)
• Representation: Models represent originals, whether from imagination (ideas, concepts), expressions, symbols, or physical objects. A model is generally understood to
mean the reproduction of an original, and it always refers to an original.
• Reduction: Models usually do not include all features of the original but only those
considered relevant by the creator.
• Pragmatism: Models function as a surrogate of the original within a certain time span,
for a certain purpose (transactions), and a certain group of recipients.
Of these three aspects, representation might be the clearest: models have always to be
more or less similar to the related original like a picture to the depicted (nothing to say
that the latter can also be thought of as a model relation).
Reduction (or simplification) is subdivided into different procedures (and always
related to pragmatism). Generally usual are for physical models reducing in size by
downscaling and transforming into other materials. Downscaling makes the model easier
to handle (better moveable, to provide overviews, etc.; on the other hand: for a pragmatic
upscaling of very small or even microcosmic objects cfr. Fig. 2.4). Transformation into
2.4
Models and Modeling
23
Fig. 2.5 The epistemic twofold model relation, adopted from Bernd Mahr [36] (Image: P. H. Jahn)
other materials is often determined by economic reasons, because during model-based
preparatory phases the effort of expensive respectively valuable materials shall be
avoided. Didactic models are often much cheaper in their materiality than the represented
originals. And if original materials are not stable in their conditions (i.e., bodies of living
creatures) they have to be substituted by stable ones in the model. These are only a few
examples of a wide range of possibilities for material transformation, but with these the
principle might be clear. The result of both, downscaling and material transformation,
is the reduction of complexity. As an extreme case of material transformation—one
could speak here of a dematerializing hyper-transformation—can be regarded as the
transformation from the physical into the digital as used in computer-based 3D modeling.
Pragmatism is important: models are always created or produced for a research,
teaching, or design task. Therefore, a model can be produced for solving a task
(model for something) or to represent an object respectively a system (model of something) (Fig. 2.5). The time span (as the core aspect of the pragmatic feature) is limited
to the duration of the work with the model, its modeling included, or the validity of
knowledge stored in the model and expressed by it. Put simply, in time, a model becomes
outdated and obsolete e.g. if the original changes or—in case of research—new insights
have been gained. Recipients can vary from small teams of scientists or designers (in
arts, design, architecture, technics, etc.) and their clients to broader audiences in didactic
settings.
For a better understanding of what a model can be, here are some examples:
• A descriptive replica, or reduced model (e.g., of a castle, a car, or a human heart),
which is, therefore, a physical and stable object.
• An explanatory model to reproduce part of a phenomenon, even simulate the effects
of a physical one (e.g., lighting), or communicate a value or knowledge.
• A predictive model, e.g., to simulate the behavior of (natural or artificial) light to
evaluate a lighting system for use in an environment.
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2 Basics and Definitions
• A prototype of an object intended for industrial mass production, which may be a
registered model, whose counterfeiting is prohibited by law.
• A dynamic model, e.g., in medicine of the role of the diaphragm in the entry of air
into the lungs, in the engineering of floating air over a car or an aircraft design, or
in architecture the simulation of façade components like panels for protection against
solar radiation.
As we have seen, modeling can also be non-physical, abstract, and therefore only a system
of thoughts, or, as often in natural sciences like climate research, a system of calculation.
In any case, it is to be mentioned that each modeling must always be thought carefully
about what to examine or convey to a target group or audience. Then the model has to be
designed according to complexity, level of detail, accuracy, proximity, or distance from
reality, and so on. To be aware of these basics is the best way to create good and evident
models that will fulfill their purpose.
Further reading: Conditions of scientific models In science and research, models
are a helpful and practicable medium of generating knowledge about problems and
their solutions or to illustrate results. The latter communicative function is also used
in educational situations or museums. To be scientific, a model itself or its producers
have to provide evidence about the sources and hypothesis on which it is based,
because the arguments need to be traced and verified (inside the model by sources
and/or annotations, outside it by commentaries). To guarantee traceability, all primary
(analog or digital) data beyond the model should be secured and stored for future
research. The model may not be published alone, but with the data and knowledge
generated during the preparatory research, and the epistemic results of the modeling
process (→ Scholarly Method).
Due to its pragmatic feature, the model should never be the sole medium of research
activity. For example, in architectural research, the model of a building may either play
an important role in solving a research question about spatial and material properties
or in investigating research questions about social, historical, or political contexts. In
the former case, formal details may be more important. In the latter case, too, the
model could also be significant, but its formal details would be of less interest.
3D modeling as a reconstruction tool of historic architecture, is a method and
practice of the humanities. In this research field, a model is generally created “post
factum”—after the original [37, p. 335]. In contrast to modeled drafts which are made
“ante factum”, because they prepare the object to be fabricated, these post-factummodels are created subsequently to illustrate the original including the developed
reconstruction of it.
2.5 The Architectural Model
2.5
25
The Architectural Model
Architecture has been visualized in planning and construction practice using downscaled
3D models for hundreds of years. Architectures are usually dealing with complex spatial
structures that are difficult to survey on the outside and difficult to see through on the
inside. The first written statements on architectural models come from architects of the
Renaissance.
The Florentine Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), a universal erudite humanist, who
practiced and theorized on architecture, stated about architectural models: “Having constructed these models, it will be possible to examine clearly and consider thoroughly the
relationship between the site and the surrounding district, the shape of the area, the number and order of the parts of a building, the appearance of the walls, the strength of the
covering, and in short the design and construction of all the elements […]. It will also
allow one to increase or decrease the size of those elements freely, to exchange them, and
to make new proposals and alterations until everything fits together well and meets with
approval” [38, pp. 120–126, 32, pp. 26–30, 33, pp. 121–123].2
Alberti refers here to several pragmatic advantages of the 3D and thus spatial architectural model compared to 2D and thus plane, non-spatial drafts. The model, which is
conceived as a scaled-down version of the reference original, is intended to make the
building to be designed spatially visible, comprehensible, and transparent, thus anticipating ideas of the effect the building may have when constructed. A fine example from
Alberti’s time is the model of the Strozzi Palace, built in Florence and still existing today
(Fig. 2.6). The scaled-down version is made of wood, can be disassembled into individual stories, and has some interchangeable modules with variants for the façade design. In
addition to the reduction in size, for further simplifications building materials are transformed from stone and plaster into wood and details such as door and window frames in
the interiors of rooms are omitted.3
With his desire for problem-free modification at any time, Alberti formulated a pragmatism that can almost be called visionary in principle, and which digital 3D modeling
is only now able to fulfill in practice. In physical modeling, which had been practiced for
centuries, modification of the model always involved a degree of manual work—be aware
2 L. B. Alberti, […] de Re aedificatoria opus elegantissimum, et quam maxime utile, Florence 1485,
2nd book (without pagination); cited after the current English edition: On the art of building in ten
books. Transl. by Joseph Rykwert et al, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1987 [5th edn 1994], p. 34.—
For further aspects of Alberti’s theory on architectural modelling [39, pp. 78–81].
3 Recently displayed on the original site in the Museino di Palazzo Strozzi, on loan from the Museo
Nazionale del Bargello, Florence [38], pp. 101–107, 222–224 (cat. no. 79), figs. 37–56; [40], pp. 75–
86, esp. pp. 77–78, figs. 2.2–2.3, plate III; [41], pp. 19–73, esp. pp. 32/35, figs. on pp. 72/73p; the
catalogue articles nos. 143–145, pp. 519–520 (n. b.: by Amanda Lillie, who is unusually supposing
that the preserved alternative stripes for the façades should be fragments of lost two further models
of the whole building).
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2 Basics and Definitions
Fig. 2.6 Wooden draft model of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, 15th century (Image: https://com
mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giuliano_da_sangallo_o_bendetto_da_maiano,_modello_per_pal
azzo_strozzi,_1489_ca,_01.JPG, accessed on 1.2.2023)
that in Alberti’s time, model making in wood was the work of a professional cabinetmaker. Exceptionally, in the case of the given example (Figs. 2.6 and 2.7), the architect
of Strozzi Palace, Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger, was a trained model maker so he
was able to model his own draft.
On the representational deficit of 2D drawings, which the model can compensate
for due to its three-dimensionality, the only slightly younger Sienese universal artist
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1502), who was also active as an architect and additionally as an engineer, commented: “As difficult as it is to represent all things in drawings,
Fig. 2.7 Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, in 2021 and documentary façade elevation in orthogonal projection (Image: Teo Pollastrini, 2021; modifications: P. H. Jahn; Xylography, taken from: Gustavo
Strafforello, La patria, geografia dell’Italia, Turin 1894): Compared to Fig. 2.6, the third story is
heightened and topped by a more voluminous cornice
2.5 The Architectural Model
27
the written word is just as unsuitable to explain everything. For too many different things
are interrupted and stand opposite each other, so that they overlap. Therefore, it is necessary to make models of all things. [...] in his imagination many things seem simple to the
architect, and he thinks they must succeed.”4
This statement refers to models of machines, but it can easily be applied to architectural
models. In any case, 3D visualization is superior to 2D ones such as plan and elevation,
it introduces depth as the third dimension and provides furthermore variability in the
viewer’s perspective. The given historical examples show clearly the still valid concept of
modeling in architecture as a three-dimensional representation of a building structure. The
modeled building is a draft only represented on paper and touches the basic question of
model theory: the model refers either to an imaginary or a real object. Depending on the
pragmatic purpose of visualization it ranges in size from a tiny reduced scale to models
at the original scale (so-called maquette), and formally from schematic to fully detailed
surfaces. All these different kinds of representation always refer to the idea of a spatial
model.
Digital 3D modeling has the advantage over physical modeling that, if required, the
classical 2D orthogonal projections of the architectural plan (floor plan, elevation/view,
and sections) can be drawn from a virtual 3D model at any time, namely by switching
off one dimension and projecting the model body orthogonally onto an image plane.
Creating pictorial perspective views of buildings (so-called renderings) is easy to realize
with digital 3D modeling software. Before the digital age, architectural perspectives had
to be painstakingly derived from plans or a physical building model using the rules of
descriptive geometry. To conclude: before the digital age, a drawing was turned into a
model by processing a draft; in the digital age, the process is quite the reverse, from
model to drawing. Nevertheless, in digital 3D reconstruction of historic architecture, the
conventional modeling from drawing still has to be practiced if visual media as plans are
basic sources for the reconstruction model.
Modern research in architectural history as established in the 19th century has adopted
the preparatory use of architectural models during the process of drafting reconstruction
models, but this not as prospective models to visualize a building project but as post
factum models of now non-extant buildings or parts thereof, either based on reliable documentation or purely hypothetically. For example, classical archeological research has
produced thousands of physical models of complete Antique temples (Fig. 2.8), other
buildings of that period, or whole cities that had fallen in ruins.
4 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, manuscript 282 (Codex Ashburnham 361), fol. 33r,
resp. Turin, Biblioteca Reale, Codex Saluzzianus 148, fol. 33v, edited in: Francesco Di Giorgio,
Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e arte militare. A cura di Corrado Maltese. Trascrizione di Livia
Maltese Degrassi (Trattati di architettura, vol. 3), 2 vols., Milan 1967, vol. I, p. 142. Thanks to Elaine
Sophie Wolff, Innsbruck/Pisa, for providing this source by giving a modern translation from the
Italian Renaissance idiom.
28
2 Basics and Definitions
Fig. 2.8 Reconstruction 1:20 model of the Parthenon temple in Athens: manufactured 1883–89 by
the modelmaker Adolfe Jolly in Paris on commission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
following a concept developed by architect Charles Chipiez with archeologist Georges Perrot, compiling contemporary research on the Parthenon of Alexis Paccard, Benoit Loviot, and Charles Simart
(permanent loan from The Met NY in Munich at the State Museum for Plaster Casts of Classical
Sculptural Work) (Image: P. H. Jahn)5
Further reading: From the physical to the digital model Physical modeling of
architecture had been practiced before digital 3D modeling was invented, and it is still
in use, mostly for presentation purposes, and in some cases for preparing designs [42].
Another purpose of this traditional modeling practice is to retrace and continue design
processes started prior to the digital age—an example gives the model workshop at
the famous La Sagrada Família church building in Barcelona (Fig. 2.9). The special
and very complex mixture of neo-gothic and partially bizarre organic forms required
a special effort of three-dimensional representation, which was achieved with dozens
of models in different levels of detail and scales, this from the beginning of building
activity in the 1880ies (cfr. blog by Samantha Hinsbey, 2020: https://www.jovinlim.
com/blog/2020/6/18/modelmaking-throughout-history-sagrada-familia). As the given
5 Inge Kader, Infoblatt: Parthenonmodell, https://www.abgussmuseum.de/de/infoblaetter/parthenon
modell, accessed on 1.2.2023; additionally: https://www.abgussmuseum.de/de/das-modell-des-par
thenon, accessed on 28.09.2022.
2.6
Computer-Based 3D Modeling
29
insight might imagine, modeling with physical materials has always required craftsmanship (Fig. 2.9) (sometimes near to handicraft work), and is a very complicated
process, often given to trained model makers [43, esp. pp. 137–159, 44].
Fig. 2.9 Physical modeling: Model workshop in the La Sagrada Família, Barcelona (Image:
Münster 2010)
2.6
Computer-Based 3D Modeling
Computer-based, i.e., digital, 3D technologies have become increasingly important for
sustaining conservation, research, and broad accessibility of cultural heritage as knowledge carriers, research tools, learning materials, and means of representation over the
past three decades [45–47]. An overarching consensus is that 3D modeling represents or
translates either a material cultural object or an intangible cultural phenomenon into a
spatial, temporal, and semantic virtual model. There are key differences in the assessment
of material and immaterial objects (e.g., usages or digital data). As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, another essential difference is between the reconstruction of objects that
are no longer existent or that have never been realized (e.g., plans) and the digitization of
objects that are still existent [48, 49].
2.6.1
3D as Reference to Space
Commonly, the prefix 3D refers to the spatial model central for digital 3D modeling.
In addition to 3D, further dimensions have become established, e.g., in mathematics,
computer graphics, and geosciences (Fig. 2.10).
30
2 Basics and Definitions
2D refers to spatially twodimensional scaled models
and representations such as
elevations or floor plans with
the dimensions width and
length.
2.5D means in computer graphics the perspective representation
of a model on a spatially two-dimensional
scaled medium such as
a computer monitor or
a printout.
3D means the virtual or
physical dimensions of
height, length, and width. In
contrast to 2.5D this yields
3D scaled objects, e.g., 3D
printed geometries.
4D stands for a spatially 3D
and temporally scaled model.
An example contains information about a building’s
changes over time, such as the
construction process.
5D and higher: the semantic enrichment of the model is occasionally mentioned as a fifth
dimension. [e.g., 81, pp. 64f.].
Fig. 2.10 Model and visual dimensions of virtual 3D reconstruction (Münster 2019)
2.6.2
Digital Versus Virtual
There is a basic consensus that digital 3D models are created using computers and thus
differ from physical reconstructions of artifacts or even paper-based reconstructions such
as architectural drawings [50]. In this context, the terms “digital” and “virtual” reconstruction are largely used interchangeably, although the underlying concepts of the digital
as “data in the form of especially binary digits” [51] are quite different from the virtual as “existing or occurring on computers or on the Internet” [52]. While the digital
thus describes a materiality, the concept of the virtual is based on a reference to reality
in terms of content. Empirically, in the German-speaking world, the term virtual reconstruction” is used more frequently, with 61,000 results compared to 13,000 results for
“digital reconstruction” in a Google search [53]. “Digital reconstruction” predominates in
English with 484,000 versus 181,000 results. In accordance with the practice described,
both terms will be used synonymously in this book [54].
2.6.3
Reconstruction Versus Digitalization
3D digitization or reality-based modeling [55, 56] stands for “the process of converting
something to digital form” [57]. Digitization describes the technological transfer of a real
object to a digital asset. For this purpose, various data acquisition technologies are used
[54, 58, 59] (→ 3D Modelling). For tangible objects, the main distinction is between
light-dependent and light-independent methods [60]. Light-dependent systems emit light
to retrieve information about the 3D surface. This comprises active approaches where
coded light is projected onto a surface (e.g., white-light scanners using structured light
to determine the surface shape and laser scanning sending laser beams at a varying angle
to determine 3D surface points using the time-of-flight principle [61, 62]) and passive
methods using imagery as videos or photos [63] without specifically coded light [60, 64].
The outcome is a dense 3D point cloud, which is then processed into a meshed surface
[65]. Methods not using visible light comprise a large variety of tomographic methods
2.6
Computer-Based 3D Modeling
31
such as CT scanning to model the internal structures or volume of the object [61]. A
taxonomy of the quality of 3D digitization of tangible heritage was developed within
the EU VIGIE study [66, 67]. According to this study, the main attributes describing a
digitized object are geometry, composition (as material information), and production (as
the model acquisition process) [68].
3D reconstruction or virtual-based modeling: Whereas digitization refers to the
technological conversion of an object into a digital representation (Fig. 2.11), a digital
reconstruction or virtual-based modeling process [56] requires human interpretation of
data to create a hypothesis of a past object [48, 69–71] (→ 3D Modelling). The model
is then mostly created on the computer using manually controlled graphic modeling software originating from construction and engineering in the case of computer-aided design
(CAD), or from design and creative industries in computer-generated imaging and graphics software (CGI). Since those processes are highly labor-intensive, approaches to reduce
the workload include generative or parametric modeling (predefining objects by rulesets
with changeable parameters) or semi-automated modeling (e.g., from historical imagery)
[48, 70].
3D meshing and texturing: Both 3D digitization and reconstruction lead to 3D models
representing surfaces and/or volumes of a tangible heritage object. Since the modeling approaches of volumetric models vary significantly depending on the methods used
[72], 3D surface representation can be discrete—based on points (point clouds), triangular meshes (vertices, edges, faces), or continuous as e.g., NURBS, geometric solids
(constructive solid geometry, CSG), and boundary representations (B-reps) [61] (→ 3D
Modelling).
Besides the geometry features of a 3D model, its radiometric parameters and materiality representation are relevant [73]. For surfaces, the main distinction is between
Fig. 2.11 Schematic reconstruction (upper left) versus digitization (lower left) workflow, both
resulting in a virtual 3D model (right) (Images: Münster, except right: Rainer Uhlemann, lightframe
fx)
32
2 Basics and Definitions
synthetically generated procedural textures and reality-based textures (→ Visualization).
Related to the latter category, another distinction is between the acquisition of material
properties [74] and digital visualization [75].
2.7
Simulation
Simulation refers to a “procedure for reproducing a system with its dynamic processes in
a model that can be experimented with in order to arrive at findings that can be transferred
to reality” (translated from [76], p. 1; for a definition from humanities [77], see also [78]).
Law and Kelton [79] distinguish three types of simulation depending on the models used:
• Static versus dynamic: A static simulation provides a replica of a system at a specific point in time. A dynamic simulation represents a system whose states, attributes,
processes, etc. are time-dependently variable [80].
• Discrete (countable) versus continuous (measurable) values.
• Deterministic (always the same output for a specific set of values) versus stochastic
(random output at a certain level) values.
In the context of cultural heritage, the term “simulation” is used in various ways:
• Simulation for analysis. Examples include:
– Object behavior, often in disaster situations, as in fluid simulation (CFD) to analyze
flooding [81], to simulate structural behavior, e.g., of monuments in earthquakes
[82] or fire [83], but also to prove requirements for materials in construction [84].
– Simulation of environmental effects, e.g., of lighting to assess conditions in historic
buildings [85, 86], degradation by climate features [87], ancient ventilation systems
[88], or acoustic conditions [89].
– Simulation of cultural effects, e.g., of crowds [90], mechanical processes [91], or
daily cultural life [4, 92].
• Simulation as calculation of imagery (rendering) [93] means the computed combination of various features such as material appearance, lighting, and geometrical
behavior, either of static scenes (images) or of time variate or dynamic (films or interactive games) to a visual output. This computation of a virtual model to create a
visualization is called rendering [94]. Methods include ray tracing [95, 96] and global
illumination [97].
A more metaphorical use of the term is the “simulation” of a building process when
unexecuted architectural plans are analyzed. If such plans are modeled in 3D, this
procedure is like an assessment of their buildability [25]. Strictly speaking the term
“re-construction” does not fit this kind of architectural 3D modeling because it was not
2.7
Simulation
33
preceded by a construction. Nevertheless, the modeling of unexecuted building plans is
also commonly called “construction”. As an established method of architectural history
research, it is advantageous in interpreting the buildability as well as spatial and aesthetic
effects of the projected buildings.
Summary This chapter introduces key concepts in digital 3D modeling of historic
architecture as part of cultural heritage, the use of sources and data as a basis for any
reconstruction, and modeling as a scientific method and practice. Architectural plans
and models are used for 3D reconstruction of historic architecture; in our digital age,
these processes are transferred from physical modeling into the digital sphere.
Concepts
• Sources: historical research is always based on sources (and data obtained from
them), their critical analysis and interpretation, which will always be subjective
views constructed in specific contexts.
• Model: a pragmatically reduced representation of an original [65 pp. 131–133].
• Digital 3D Reconstruction: “the creation of a virtual model of historic entities that
requires an object-related, human interpretation” [70, p. 7].
Key literature
• Jill A. Franklin, T. A. Heslop et al. (eds.): Architecture and Interpretation. Essays
for Eric Fernie. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell 2012 [98].
• Petra Brouwer, Martin Bressani et al. (eds.): Narrating the Globe: The Emergence
of World Histories of Architecture. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press 2023
[99].
• Sander Münster: Die Begrifflichkeiten der 3D-Rekonstruktion, in: Piotr
Kuroczyński/Mieke Pfarr-Harfst/Sander Münster (eds.), Der Modelle Tugend 2.0.
Vom digitalen 3D-Datensatz zum wissenschaftlichen Informationsmodell. Computing in Art and Architecture 2, Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net 2019, 39–57
[54].
• Jan-Eric Lutteroth/Stephan Hoppe: Schloss Friedrichstein 2.0—Von digitalen 3DModellen und dem Spinnen eines semantischen Graphen. In: ibid., 185–198 [100].
• Anthony Brundage: Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and
Writing. 6th edition, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell 2017 [23].
• Stephan Hoppe/Stefan Breitling (eds.): Virtual Palaces, Part II: Lost Palaces and
Their Afterlife. Virtual Reconstruction between Science and Media. PALATIUM
e-Publication 3, Munich: PALATIUM 2016 [101].
34
2 Basics and Definitions
• Soraya de Chadarevian/Nick Hopwood (eds.): Models. The Third Dimension of
Science. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2004 [102].
• Patrick Healy: The Model and its Architecture. Delft School of Design Series on
Architecture and Urbanism 4, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers 2008 [103].
• Mark Morris: Models: Architecture and the Miniature. Architecture in Practice,
Southern Gate, Chichester: Wiley Academy Press 2006 [104].
• Matthew Mindrup: The Architectural Model. Histories of the Miniature and the
Prototype, the Exemplar and the Muse. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press
2019 [33].
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