Historic building information modeling using image: Example of port city Massawa, Eritrea

Abstract

Historic Building Information Modeling (HBIM) assists heritage conservation by facilitating the achievement of sustainable development goals. Prior methods in developing HBIM mostly assume site accessibility for conducting a study, availability of expensive cutting-edge technologies, and particular expertise for data acquisition and processing. This has created challenges for some sites, especially in developing countries, where modern technologies and sites are inaccessible. This research aims to develop an alternative HBIM development method for inaccessible heritage sites without requiring modern data acquisition and processing tools. This will be crucial to bridge gaps in HBIM development and facilitate heritage conservation. The method proposed in this research relies on identifying façade images of heritage buildings which will be rectified, segmented, and outlined to determine measurements for digitization. The proposed method was used to develop HBIM with a parametric digital library for heritage building façades in the ancient port city of Massawa, Eritrea. The models developed were further compared, validated, and refined using historic architectural drawings. The results indicate creating HBIM from images is achievable with a higher degree of precision. Despite requiring significant interaction of users, the method will allow image-based HBIM development to facilitate heritage conservation for similar heritage sites that are inaccessible, information-deprived, and where advanced tools are unavailable. Unlike most prior methods requiring multiple images and sophisticated processes, the proposed method relies on simple steps using an image. Besides, unlike previously used image-based digitization approaches, it enables the creation of parametric models with advanced applications beyond visualization.