From Executive Design to Heritage Site: Preliminary Development of an Application for Integrating Information on the State of Conservation Within an HBIM Model

Abstract

In conservation work on historic built heritage, the transition from executive design to the worksite often requires the verification, integration and updating of information acquired during the design phase. This issue is particularly relevant for the documentation of the state of conservation since new accessibility conditions on site may allow previously unreadable areas to be observed and decay maps to be revised. This paper presents the preliminary development and testing of SMAT, an iPadOS application designed to support the in situ updating of decay maps and their reintegration within an HBIM workflow. The experimentation was carried out on the Oratory of San Giovanni Battista in Bussana Vecchia, starting from a previously developed HBIM model. The application allows operators to annotate decay phenomena on reference orthophotos using vector geometries, associate each annotation with semantic and temporal information, and store the data in JSON format. The workflow also includes a differential synchronization procedure based on Dynamo scripts, aimed at comparing successive annotation versions and updating the corresponding two-dimensional views in Autodesk Revit. The preliminary experimentation indicates the potential of the proposed procedure to support the traceable management of information updates between the design and worksite phases and to streamline the intermediate steps between direct observation, graphic restitution, and data reintegration, while maintaining an operational approach compatible with the requirements of the worksite phase in restoration processes.