CNRS participated in 3D-ICONS through its MAP Laboratory (Modèles et simulations pour l’Architecture,
CNRS participates in 3D-ICONS through its MAP Laboratory (Modèles et simulations pour l’Architecture, l’urbanisme et le Paysage) to provide content and technology.
The MAP Laboratory (Modèles et simulations pour l’Architecture, l’urbanisme et le Paysage) is a research unit of the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the Ministry of Culture (FRE 3315). Its activity focuses on the application of informatics techniques for the study of architecture considered in its heritage, constructive, urban and landscape dimensions. For several years, the MAP-Gamsau team (Groupe de recherche pour l’Application des Méthodes Scientifiques à l’Architecture et à l’Urbanisme) in Marseille, has concentrated its means on the “Digital tools and architectural heritage” topic. Within the framework of this project, mobilized competences relate to the 3D surveying and the representation of architectural heritage, basing on laser scanning, image-based-modeling and knowledge-based modeling of hypothetical states of historic buildings.
Stressing the importance of developing a range of rich and diverse cultural content in new media, since 2003, the Ministry of Culture and Communication has proposed to launch a project (belonging to the digitisation plan of cultural heritage) for the three-dimensional scanning of the great French monuments: the 3D-monuments project (http://www.map.archi.fr/3D-monuments) coordinated by the MAP-Laboratory (CNRS/MCC). This program aims to use the 3D representation of the building morphology as an « interface » for browsing the related documentary sources.
To achieve this objective, the MAP-Laboratory develops the NUBES Platform (http://www.map.archi.fr/nubes), an informative system at the architectural scale based on relations that can be established between the representation of buildings (shape, dimension, state of conservation, hypothetical restitution) and heterogeneous information about various fields (such as the technical, the documentary or still the historical one). This Web Platform allows users to organize multiple representations (and associated information) around a semantic description model of the studied object.
Numerous 3D digitisation experiences were carried out in the past six years in order to refine the conceived methods and tools. These are tested on large-scale pilot projects conducted in partnership with the “Centre des Monuments Nationaux”, the « Château de Versailles » and the ministry of Culture and Communication.