Towards a Digital Twin for Heritage Interpretation
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TOWARDS A DIGITAL TWIN FOR HERITAGE INTERPRETATION From HBIM to AR visualization ELOISA DEZEN-KEMPTER1, DAVI LOPES MEZENCIO2, ERICA DE MATOS MIRANDA3, DANILO PICO DE SÁ4 and ULISSES DIAS5 1,2,3,4,5School of Technology, UNICAMP [email protected] 2,3,4{d169759|e155254| d214848}@dac.unicamp.br [email protected] Abstract. Data-driven Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology has brought new tools to efficiently deal with the tension between the real and the virtual environments in the field of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation (AECO). For historic assets, BIM represents a paradigm shift, enabling better decision-making about preventive maintenance, heritage management, and interpretation. The potential application of the Historic-BIM is creating a digital twin of the asset. This paper deals with the concept of a virtual environment for the consolidation and dissemination of heritage information. Here we show the process of creating interactive virtual environments for the Pampulha Modern Ensemble designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the 1940s, and the workflow to their dissemination in an AR visualization APP. Our results demonstrate the APP feasibility to the Pampulha’s building interpretation. Keywords. Augmented Reality (AR); Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM); Heritage Interpretation; Modern Architecture. 1. Introduction The Digital Twin (DT) can be understood as a probabilistic, multiscale, multiphysics integrated simulation of a system that uses the best physical models, sensors, and history to mirror the life cycle of its corresponding twin. The DT can also predict the system’s response to security-critical events and uncover previously unknown issues before they become critical by comparing current and predicted responses. Systems involving DT are capable of mitigating damage or degradation by activating self-healing mechanisms or recommending changes to the mission profile, thereby increasing the life and probability of success (Glaessgen and Stargel 2012). The DT consists of three components: physical product in a real monitored space, data and information connections, and the corresponding virtual product in virtual space (Grieves and Vickers 2017). At the AECO industry, the RE: Anthropocene, Proceedings of the 25th International Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) 2020, Volume 2, 183-191. © 2020 and published by the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong. 184 E. DEZEN-KEMPTER ET AL. virtual product in the virtual space corresponds to the BIM model, which in the case of the built heritage, is the HBIM. Real-time monitoring is performed by sensors, generating data in quantity. Data is communicated, stored, processed, and associated with the virtual product allowing awareness of physical space performance and simulation in virtual space for decision making on how to act in real space. The potential application of the DT for Heritage is its realistic representation in the form of an intelligent and semantically enriched 3D model (HBIM), becoming a tool capable of managing information collected and modeled, improving its availability and accessibility. According to Nagakura et al. (2015), having a digital model of historical heritage is a cheaper tool to allow building investigations because, unlike other areas of study, there is no way to take buildings to laboratories or store them in museums galleries like other historical artifacts. The use of digital scanning technologies to survey the current state of historic buildings, such as photogrammetry and laser scanning, expedites the process of generating a digital model. Photogrammetry is a low-cost method and captures building textures and materials by creating a 3D model from photographs (Nagakura and Sung 2014). To assist in the understanding of 3D projects and to promote social interaction between architects, historians, and visitors to historical heritage sites, Augmented Reality (AR) is a tool that allows users to interact with the digital model (Nagakura and Sung 2017). AR supports the real experience of historical heritage sites without having to go there. 2. Research Aim and Roadmap This paper presents ongoing research aiming to develop a AR APP from the digital twin of two buildings, the Ballroom and the St. Francis of Assisi Church, part of the Pampulha Modern Ensemble (PME) designed by the world-famous architect Oscar Niemeyer in the 1940s. The UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention listed the Pampulha Modern Ensemble, in 2016, due to its Outstanding Universal Value as a cultural landscape. This research explores how users, professional and non-professional public, can interact with AR to visualize, filter, and retrieve any information enclosed within the Digital Twin of historic buildings. AR is a growing area in the AEC industry. It offers a new tool for visualization and interaction in the field of heritage preservation, operation, and maintenance, as well as for tourist purposes. Regarding the visualization and interaction purposes, the following research questions are drawn up: Is it possible to filter and access only specific components and information from the Digital Twin into an AR environment? How can the modeler prepare the BIM Model for the AR environment to retrieve the knowledge-based information? The digital twins’ creation employed terrestrial laser scanning (TSL) and a low cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The process was based on three fundamental steps: (1) collection of spatial and documentary data, (2) data processing and dense surface model (DSM) creation, and (3) HBIM modeling. The framework includes TOWARDS A DIGITAL TWIN FOR HERITAGE 185 INTERPRETATION creating the HBIM model in Autodesk’s REVIT authoring. For the AR process, the model organization is crucial. The heritage elements were organized in the HBIM model using the Dynamo visual programming tool. Dynamo allowed the creation of building components groups to make the HBIM model easy to import and interpret into the AR model-authoring platform. The Diagram below illustrates the Roadmap of the research project and the distinct computational tools, which integrate each step. Step 1 addresses the HBIM creation of both buildings, which were created in previous research, in which the details of the Scan2BIM process were already published (Cogima et al. 2018, Cogima et al. 2019). The focus of the present work is to present the results from the AR APP creation for the first building, the Ballroom. Figure 1. Roadmap of the AR creation and testing from the Digital Twin of Niemeyer’s Pampulha Buildings. 3. Case Study: The Ballroom and St. Francis of Assisi Church in the Pampulha Modern Ensemble The PME was the center of a garden city project created at Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais State. Built between 1942 and 1943, the PME was developed by architect Oscar Niemeyer and by landscaper Burle Marx, in collaboration with great artists and professionals, among them, the painter Candido Portinari. The PME is composed of four buildings: St. Francis of Assisi Church, the Cassino (current Pampulha Art Museum), the Ballroom (current Centre of Reference in Urbanism, Architecture, and Design), and the Yacht Golf Club. Although each of the four building offers a slightly different architectural solution to the challenge of adapting the common formal Modernist vocabulary to the climate and environment of the new city, overall what emerged was a fluid and plastic architecture that embraces views and joins to the picturesque qualities of the lake and mountain landscape. The PME and the selected buildings are relevant to 186 E. DEZEN-KEMPTER ET AL. the application of AR, as they are heritage sites of high significance to the country and receive thousands of annual visitors. 3.1. ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHURCH The church is constructed of five adjacent ellipsoid concrete shell structures of different heights. Although industrial buildings have used concrete shells previously, their use here marked the first occasion for a religious structure. The most massive shell faces the lake where a slender freestanding ‘tower’ in the shape of an inverted pyramid is linked to the church by the flat roof of the porch. Paulo Werneck decorated part of the outer surface of the shell with tiles, while blue and white murals by Cândido Portinari cover the facades of the lower shells facing the street. The unusual and innovative design of the church generated a significant disagreement within the Catholic Church, which caused the postponement of its consecration and, consequently, the opening to the public until 1959. 3.2. BALLROOM - CENTRE OF REFERENCE IN URBANISM, ARCHITECTURE, AND DESIGN The more modest building from PME, the Ballroom, sits on a small island surrounding mostly paved minimalist gardens and linked to the shore by a bridge. The circular flat-roof ends in a curved walkway which connects the main building with the bathrooms facing the circular stage. The gallery is supported by expressive columns, which also contour the entire circular volume ending. Decorative blue and white tiles designed by Candido Portinari coated all surfaces. The Ballroom worked as urban equipment for being a place of dances, shows, and dinner, to provide the public with the experience and the allure of the new region of Belo Horizonte. The Ballroom has been twice restored in the last twenty years and now houses the Centre of Reference in Urbanism, Architecture, and Design.