Immersive Conservation: Interactive Tools for Preserving Built Heritage

The conservation of stone-built heritage presents unique challenges, ranging from documenting complex geometries and understanding the underlying damage mechanisms to implementing conservation strategies. Addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive methodology involving a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders and experts, monitoring tools, and impact assessments. Recent advancements in Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) offer novel solutions for the integration of datasets from multiple disciplines to enhance collaboration among experts. However, HBIM models are often complex, static, and not connected to real-time data, limiting their applicability to a single case study and preventing broader use across multiple contexts. Extended Reality (XR) technologies offer much-needed solutions for enhancing visualisation and intuitive engagement with these models. This paper introduces a novel framework that combines HBIM and XR to address stone conservation challenges. HBIM serves as a robust platform for 3D modelling and data integration, while XR enables spatial visualisation and interactive engagement, facilitating both on-site and remote expert consultations. The preliminary framework is developed for a reference monument, the Lausanne Cathedral. This integrated approach can foster collaboration across disciplines, allowing stakeholders to access the information in the HBIM model, and overcoming the compartmentalisation of data.