Linking HBIM graphical and semantic information through the Getty AAT: Practical application to the Castle of Torrelobatón

Abstract

The current approaches for the built heritage documentation and modelling are to collecting, organizing and integrating immovable assets’ data into a single graphic-semantic structure using BIM tools. This is the key issue to shifting from point clouds to HBIM. Although fully automation is not possible, practical approaches for the conversion of point clouds into HBIM elements grouped in libraries have recently appeared to meet the particular characteristics of historic buildings in an equivalent way to the libraries of elements already available for contemporary building and civil works. In spite of the graphic information on the built heritage elements is semantically rich in itself, linking the families of modelled elements with the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) as worldwide well-known controlled vocabulary, allows not only the automation but the consistency in cataloguing of required elements, as well as more efficient retrieval of information in a standardized way. This so useful graphic-semantic linking is particularly applied to the Castle of Torrelobatón to make up the HBIM meaningful set of fundamental elements of the defensive architecture from the Middle Age to the Renaissance in Europe, of which this Castle is a representative example.