An Integrated and Open-Access Plugin for Uncertainty Assessment of the Hypothetical Virtual Reconstruction of Architecture

In recent years, the field of virtual 3D reconstructions has witnessed growing interest in developing solutions to enhance the accessibility, clarity, shareability, transparency, and overall reusability of these models within scientific contexts. These efforts have been particularly evident in several large-scale recent European projects. Notably, the CoVHer Erasmus + project focused on lost or never-built architecture, emphasising that the production and publication of comprehensive and transparent paradata and metadata are indispensable for scientifically accurate reconstructions. This detailed documentation is often disseminated through scientific publications and accompanying visual materials, such as images and videos, with uncertainty represented through false-colour renderings. However, despite the scientific community recognising the importance of these best practices, no shared standards have yet been established, and 3D models are rarely made publicly available. This raises a critical question: why do we produce such 3D models if they cannot be compared, queried, studied, or reused by others? To contribute to addressing this issue, this research introduces an innovative open-source digital tool, developed for seamless integration into a widely used open-source 3D modelling and rendering software (Blender), aimed at simplifying the process of uncertainty analysis. This initiative aspires to encourage the application of best practices for the creation of high-quality 3D models making them more easily shareable, interrogable, and reusable; fostering the development of structured uncertainty assessment based on a versatile and unambiguous uncertainty sourcebased 7-level false-colour scale complemented with analytic formulas capable of synthesising the average uncertainty of the 3D model with the two coefficients AU_V and AU_VR; and advocate for the publication of 3D models to enhance their reusability on shared open platforms.