From text and drawing to model. 3D virtual reconstruction, 3D semantic segmentation, C. N. Ledoux, knowledge representation

This case study, amongst the various cases of virtual reconstruction, exemplifies the application of a methodological approach adopted able to allow many types of analysis and to introduce new and meaningful innovations to the interpretation methods and techniques concerning hypothetical reconstruction of projects designed or never built architectures. Original old drawings and hermetic texts, implemented by different kind of documentary sources, have been used for the digital reconstruction of a large part of the unbuilt projects by Claude-Nicholas Ledoux for his ideal city of Chaux, addressing the issues of architectural coherence from their constructive hypotheses point of view, as well as the use of representation codes able to reproduce the graphic characteristics of the original engravings. The digital reconstruction based on architectural drawings or sketches and supported by textual descriptions and notes, is meaningful inasmuch as it is an exemplary issue to explain the relationship between the certainty of the data used as a source and the accuracy of granularity of the data itself. Each different type of source is characterized by its own specific grade of information granularity that can be transformed into a hypothetical 3D model with its own level of detail. The geometrical definition of each constitutive elementary unit is, therefore, not dependent on the level of detail of the source data (e.g., scale of representation of 2D drawing) but by the type of information that has to be induced, deduced or interpreted. However, a lot of issues related to the formulation of the hypothetical 3D reconstruction of edifices only designed and never built are still to be explored, so we aspire to reach the purpose of describing and representing the whole process of reinterpretation accomplished.