Archaeo-BIM: Considerations for a Semantic Tree for the Built Heritage of Pompeii

Informative systematisation is a crucial issue in the management of Archaeological Heritage. In an area of considerable historical relevance such as the Vesuvian one, the integration of BIM (Building Information System) and GIS (Geographic Information System) systems sets a contemporary challenge while providing new opportunities for site valorisation and administration. The paper focuses on BIM methodology, exploring how its ability to model complex structures on a geometric and informational level can deliver a comprehensive view also in the domain of archaeology. The study develops from the semantics of the archaeological domain between the republican and high imperial age analysed in parallel with the semantics adopted by the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) scheme, for the communication of information according to a standardised workflow for digital modelling. The analysis of these two languages allows to understand to how closely archaeological ontologies can collimate with semantic relations in the BIM environment, highlighting criticalities and potentialities of integrating entity, conceptual and structural information in a unified model. A focus is on the ontology model CIDOC CRM (Conceptual Reference Model), to facilitate the understanding of data where gaps exist between archaeology and IFC to be implemented or improved. Its use is explored as a basis for the creation of specific ontologies for the Vesuvian domain, to guarantee a coherent representation of historical and constructive data and defining a normalised method to guarantee the preservation of archaeological assets.