3D models and digital images for interpreting and communicating the evolution of the historic city

The city of L'Aquila is characterised by a variety of cultural heritage, both monumental assets, such as churches and noble palaces, or minor buildings, such as the many civil houses, which represent the historical evolution and changing material and immaterial cultures over time. This heritage is enriched by the public areas the citizen recognises as their own and in which daily life is conducted in its multiple aspects. Among these, a central role is played by Cathedral square, which represents a public space that synthesises the evolutionary history of the city, incarnating its collective identity values. This place, the scene of multiple events, has undergone numerous transformations. The digitisation and three-dimensional reconstruction work matured as a result of scientific research based on the principles of Heritage Interpretation, which favours the dissemination of scientific knowledge. A digital application has been developed that exploits the communicative potential of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to make the different settings of main square between past and present accessible in immersive and desktop mode, thus enabling the main architectural transformations that have taken place over time to be visualized. App based on VR technology are capable of narrating a broad audience about the architectural evolution and environments over time, facilitating the production of images that recount moments from the past, thus helping to promote the city's tangible and intangible heritage.DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.31.2023.14