Semantic Representation of Accurate Surveys for the Cultural Heritage: BIM Applied to the Existing Domain

For years the traditional documentation of existing architecture has been represented by surveys, carried out with direct measuring, annotations and eidotypes. This approach is still pervasive today, but many modern metrologic technologies, such as digital photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning, enhanced the information-gathering pipeline particularly in the Cultural Heritage context. This chapter investigates a methodology able to express semantics and parametric interconnections among elements, proposed in order to translate real shapes into “smart” digital architectural components, using some piece of software specifically written in order to manipulate accurate geometries; following this approach, which will be improved more and more by future plugin developments, information can be organized into proper hierarchical BIM frameworks that proved to be strategic in the recording of “as-built” conditions, result of inferences of geometric and topological information in digital models.