HBIM and worksite simulation: first experiments

Numerous HBIM (Historic Building Information Modelling) projects are being developed globally at an incremental pace. As results of steady improvements in the scan-to-BIM processes, as well as of the digital survey technologies available, increasingly accurate representations of heritage assets (and their attached information) are being obtained. Less often, and because of the efforts and resources necessary to explore such phases of the process, a further temporal evolution analysis is carried on, despite having tools that come from the commercial world which could be suitable to that use. This article narrates the attempt of an analysis alike on the case study of the Duomo of Mantova HBIM, where digital instruments were bent to construct the simulation of a refurbishment worksite as a separated actor in the federated model. Accordingly, the possibility of adding a temporal dimension (regarding the sequence of refurbishments) tasks was explored: some seminal 4D simulations were the results. What began as a mean of checking the dimensions and the footprint of a refurbishment worksite and its equipment, became more: the HBIM acted as a decision-making helper, a project management tool and a risk management device.