A CRITICAL PROCESS THE SHAPING OF DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Dean Abernathy, University of California-Los Angeles

The successful creation of digital reconstruction models is fundamentally dependent on the quality of the source material. A reconstruction most often begins with a search through the literature, an excavation in its own right, the goal of which is the unearthing of the scholarly history surrounding the building. This history and its associated (pen and paper) reconstructions are inserted, through various means, into the digital reconstruction process. A comparison of the research and modeling process for digital reconstruction projects of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and the Basilica Aemelia illustrates the complexities of the digital reconstruction process.