Virtual environments to communicate built cultural heritage: a HBIM based virtual tour

HBIM methodology is nowadays widely used for the management of all aspects of architectural heritage, from survey to analysis, up to protection and management issues. This interest is due to the potential that HBIM methodology offers in terms of collection, processing, management and sharing of information, through a multidimensional and multidisciplinary approach. Practical application of HBIM are the Scan-to-BIM processes, i.e. the digital reproduction of architectures starting from survey methodologies based on laser scanning and photogrammetry. An increasingly frequent application of HBIM models is their integration in game engines for educational or communicative purposes. Actually, examples of AR and VR applications, serious games or virtual tours employing such models are increasingly frequent. Indeed, such tools allow the generation of virtual immersive environments in which the user is free to navigate or interact with objects. The use of virtual environments that reproduce real places or architectures, is able to generate new attraction and interest in users, while facilitating immaterial accessibility and, allowing a dynamic formulation of content, greater ease of understanding and reading calibrated to the user. The paper aims at the development of a virtual tour set entirely in the former Jesuitical Complex of Santa Croce, located in the historical district of Castello in Cagliari. This tour will be a potential tool to support the understanding and communication of historic architecture by going to the virtual accessibility of the complex.