Dissemination, assessment and management of historic buildings by thematic virtual tours and 3D models

The digitalization of the historical-architectural heritage for virtual reality (VR) applications is crucial within the contemporary scientific and technical debate for several reasons. In fact, beyond the exploration for education and entertainment purposes, the employment ofthree-dimensional(3D)reality-based and computer-based models and environments seems to be very promisingboth for performance assessment and for risk management. Particularly, in order to develop and validate smart, low-cost and user-friendly tools, which might work even in cases of limited time and budget, this paper is going to propose a methodological workflowbased on thematic virtual tours of 360° scenes, which integrate a variety of informative contents and digital products as external hotspots/switches. The VR tours, where 3D models might play a keyrole for an accurate representation of relevant parts and/or analytical elaboration of further data, are conceived as flexible and scalable solutions; they support users, technicians and authorities through remote access, diagnosis of the state of conservation and communication of safety measures. The application of the proposed methods and techniques to a representative case study, the Norman-Swabian Castle of Gioiadel Colle (Ba), South Italy, is presented in order to illustrate the achievable results and to highlight the benefit of innovative “digital” solutions for data collection, storage and communication, compared to the traditional “analogical”practices. In detail, a Web-GIS platform, developed within a previous research project, is integrated with direct links to three thematic virtual tours that provide added contentsfor inclusive dissemination (timeline schemes, aerial views, 3D sculptural and architectural details), performance assessment (diagnostic reports, decay maps, 3D reconstructions of technical components) andrisk management (exit signs, help instructions, warnings). Thus, the VR tours, while documenting the state of the siterealistically, might also act as host environments of digital products, at increasingcomplexity, all displayed according to an intuitive and accessible communication approach.