The Art of Reconstruction. Documenting the process of 3D modeling: some preliminary results

The project `The Art of Reconstruction' explores the usage of digital three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions to support research into historical and archaeological architectural settings. More specifically, the aim is to enhance the research on buildings that are nowadays partly or entirely lost, buildings that were once were keystones in the formation of local identities. Using 3D reconstructions during the research into built environments offers new insights and a new approach for analyzing data. The path that leads to the final reconstruction of the building should be documented and this documentation generates a vast amount of new data otherwise never encountered. This data should be stored in an interoperable database and combined with the results of the project published in an accessible format. The many perspectives on the actual building itself, i.e. the spatial context, and the possibility of visualizing the architectural phases through time, makes 3D modeling an innovative tool for the specialist. It offers a virtual world where various kinds of experiments can be conducted. This paper will show some preliminary results of the digital 3D reconstruction of the lost Archaic temple of Caprifico di Torrecchia (Latium, Italy) that, when only described in words and drawings, would have remained invisible.