Medida por medida: da representação à simulação, do analógico ao digital

Abstract

The demands for accuracy and reliable in surveying the geometric forms of the built environment have reached in present days an interest never seen before in the History of Architecture and Urban Planning. This could be verified through a crescent amount of contemporary projects that are dedicated to the acquisition, processing, interpretation and 3D reconstruction of building models, archeological artifacts and cities. The foremost aim of this dissertation is thus a critical analysis of the cultural transformations involved in the application of digital technologies in the documentation processes and in the investigation of the contemporary cities. Another aim is to find elements to answer some fundamental questions in order to clarify the connections among photogrammetry, graphic computing and Architecture. The first part is dedicated to the initial movement in that sense, in the analysis of the text Descriptio Urbis Romae, from Leon Battista Alberti, a referential writing that represents the first indication on the habit of measuring the world. The next part of this work is an attempt to demonstrate how projective geometry, stereoscopy and photography, both invented and improved in the nineteenth century, become part of a new discipline, named photogrammetry. The new possibilities that architectural photogrammetry have put forward on the preservation of historical heritage, on architectural surveying and on town planning are then presented with the intention of proceeding a critical approach of the tools for documenting and investigating of the cities. Finally, this dissertation focuses the drawbacks, interferences and possible interactions among digital photogrammetry, computer vision and Architecture. Revealing the divergences and convergences between analogical and digital technologies, whether in the representation or in the construction of 3D models, the autor is trying to lay down some appropriate questions on the knowledge by simulation, mainly starting from dialogue with the text of Pierre Lévy. The aim of this work is, at last instance, appointing new visions on the computadorized simulation in Architecture and Urbanism, exploiting efficient and feasible methodologies.