Cultural heritage documentation using geomatic techniques: Case study: San Basilio´s monastery, L´Aquila

Each community, passing through its history and its collective memories, has the duty to conserve, identify and properly manage its own heritage that, unfortunately, is often susceptible to transformations due to time, anthropogenic factors or damages caused by natural phenomena. For this reason, heritage artifacts are being extensively documented in order to be maintained in the very best way and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Geomatic techniques (total stations, GLASS receivers and laser scanners), when integrated among them in an appropriate surveying methodology, data management and processing, can provide dedicated methodologies able to detect and survey the particular characteristics of such complicated structures. In this way, 3D geometric models of the building can be created and enriched with a wide range of information, results of the combination between the visual potential of the images with the high accuracy of the geometric survey. Thus, the use of geomatics represents an interesting tool both for the visualization and the metric evaluation of the structure itself providing an efficient support for professionals and public bodies. The survey of the old monastery of San Basilio, a 16th century building in L´Aquila, central Italy, is presented in this paper.