Geometric reliability evaluation in Scan to BIM process, the case study of Santa Croce monastery

In the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain, the number of innovative approaches for the conservation of historic buildings and their management is increasing. In the last few years, the evolution of the acquisition techniques (laser scanner and photogrammetry) has allowed the acquisition of highly accurate reality-based models. Concurrently, the Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) approach has given the possibility to manage the geometric consistency along with the semantic attributes input into 3D parametric objects, through the use of relational databases. The integration of the digital survey techniques with the HBIM approach is known as Scan to BIM process. However, the creation of three-dimensional As-is Building Information Models (BIMs), that capture the existing conditions of a building, starting from point-cloud data collected by laser scanners or photogrammetry, is mostly performed manually, and errors can occur during the data collection phase, pre-processing, or modelling. Furthermore, given the irregularity and morphological heterogeneity of the architectural elements typical of ancient buildings, the geometric parametrisation always makes modelling in BIM extremely difficult. In the present study, we investigated, through deviation analysis and clash detection, the geometric reliability of the parametrical modelling of the former Santa Croce monastery in Modugno (Bari, Italy).