Shedding light on the city: Discovering, appreciating and sharing cultural heritage using 3D visual technology

The paper describes the initial results of the research "Integrated informative models to identify, appreciate and share urban and environmental heritage. Testing 3D interfaces for "cultural and geographic objects": architecture of information and computerized architecture". The main purpose of this research is to expand the concept of "integrated informative models" by studying integrations and overlaps from different environments, taking into consideration both geographical (3D GIS) and web (3D Web and 3D WebGIS) space as well as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). The research aims at identifying technological, procedural and operational systems, structured specifically for each individual case, to define technology with easily accessible (cheap and/or open source) instruments characterized by reliable data processing. Within this framework, various experimentations have been carried out on the area we were privileged to work in, the historical centre of Ascoli Piceno, using different paths/measuring scales and following the necessary organization of data.