Sperimentazione di una procedura per la creazione di un atlante digitale per la documentazione dei soffitti lignei dipinti di Sicilia

The naves of churches and the halls of noble palaces. The paintings that decorate these ceilings are precious evidence of the wide cultural connections that linked Sicily to Europe and to the Mediterranean area. The paper reports the results of research aiming at the development of a workflow for the creation of a digital atlas of these ceilings. Digital representation overcomes one of the main obstacles to the study, the preservation and the dissemination of these works of art, i.e. the traditional dichotomy between photographic images and drawings. The chosen case study is the ceiling that covers the main hall of the Steri in Palermo, a 14th-century palace that today hosts the offices of the local university’s rector. The first step of the study, dedicated to laser scanning and SfM photogrammetric surveying, produced a textured mesh model of the ceiling. The following step was addressed to the development of a web-based application that allows a wide range of users to visualize the 3D model of the ceiling and the orthophotos of the paintings; in order to make 3D visualization easier, the 3D textured model was subdivided into base units; the pages dedicated to the orthophotos are linked to an editable database that stores information data.