Point Cloud-Oriented Inspection of Old Street’s Sustainable Transformation from the Ceramic Industry to Cultural Tourism: A Case Study of Yingge, a Ceramic Town in Taiwan

Yingge, a ceramic-producing town in Northern Taiwan, has experienced three development stages in the 50 years since 1970. The town’s fabric and the second contour evolved through the transformation of its former manufacturing industry into cultural tourism on Old Street. This process of evolution is evidenced through chronological changes of overlaid sections, skylines, and horizontal sections along Old Street since 1970. The street fabric has been shaped by its historical background, government planning strategies, commercial activities, cultural identity, and living patterns. Three-dimensional (3D) scans supported our analysis by capturing and segmenting the vocabularies and overlaid sections with special characteristics and changes. Commercial spaces and open street spaces were found to be mutually influential. A flexible and sometimes hidden spatial structure of fabric was elucidated. Yingge has become a large-scale shopping mall and important window into cultural tourism, with its fabric and contours redeveloped to be consistent with the identity of nearby cities. 3D scanning data were combined with documentation and maps to create a referable connection between reality and chronological data. An augmented reality (AR) application was used to simplify the inspection process through a productive connection between as-built scans and user interactions.