3D metric-modelling for knowledge and documentation of architectural structures (Royal Palace in Turin)

3D-models can aid to investigate and than to comunicate how a structure is shaped and built up; this is the reason why architectural studies often use models to integrate 2D representations and drawings In the last few years our group, directed by. prof. Bruno Astori, has carried out a large and complex survey of “Palazzo Reale” in Turin and its Gardens. Several different nets of verteces, hierarchicaly connected each other, have been arranged gaining every room of the palace; the general goal of the topographic survey was to obtain a detailed geometric description of every part of the building located at different levels. The project result is the basic tool to organize the global preservation of the royal palace, to support restoration activities or historical analyses. Moreover 2D representations, at architectural scale, are one of the main devices to found the renewed arrangement of museum system of Savoia Residences. In the Royal Palace of Turin, the intricate setting up of main rooms and stairs related to back ones, often required many differently oriented sections to describe single complex structures. These problems suggested to carry out 3D metric models made up according to previous spatial data acquisition metodologies. Moreover, since the Palace is a museum (most places but not all), particular kind of models can establish a virtual visit for rooms not included in guided visit. This work is even a bargain to think about aims and capability of metric models to show Architecture. Architectural studies and other investigations examining historic buildings or part of them, certainly could need models, but it’s necessary to ask oneself what kind of details or information we expect that a model is able to reveal (different models can reveal different topics). Some of these themes and observations about models suggest in what chances could be useful to perform laser scanner applications, in spite of others in wich these methods wouldn’t be so helpful.