Digital replica of cultural landscapes: an experimental reality-based workflow to create realistic, interactive open world experiences

In the last decades, the awareness of what cultural heritage is, as well as its definition, has changed and broaden its horizon. Important international institutions such as ICOMOS and UNESCO, which represent the reference points for documentation and protection, have revised the definition of cultural heritage to include not only the elements of historical-artistic relevance and the testimonies of a civilization but also the environment around them. In other words, the meaning of cultural heritage has been extended to the concept of cultural landscape. This article tries to meet this last definition of cultural heritage: through an extensive 3D survey of the ancient city of Sarmizegetusa (National Historical Monument), it presents a new perspective for the documentation and representation of cultural landscape that includes not only the structures of the city but also the areas that have not been excavated yet, and the surrounding natural environment. The term "digital replica" is presented to define this new perspective. The article deals in detail with the whole digitization process and the tools used to obtain a digital replica of a Roman city deepening the integration between photogrammetry and computer graphics. The detailed description is intended to make the workflow reproducible by the scientific community. Besides, as a final remark, experimented optimization procedures and navigation tools designed to manage and explore large three-dimensional datasets will be illustrated.