Archaeological heritage information management: HBIM Erythrae (Ildır)

Cultural heritage artefacts foster versatile data and information. Today, recording heritage data is conducted via digital acquisition tools and methods. Despite the digital practice in heritage digitization, final representations are still limited to two-dimensional drawings especially in the conservation actions. As a result of the conventional implementation habits, conservation actions remain not fully integrated in the digital workflow and thus integrity issues remain an open research question. To remedy the gap, this study offers a methodology for sustainable management of heritage information bridging the technological advances and the practical needs of typical conservation actions. To tackle the research problem, the remains in Erythrae archaeological site in Turkey, the in-situ remains of the Heroon and the scattered stones around it, offered as the case. By revisiting the conservation process, this study established a new data-driven conservation action process to offer a fully functional heritage information representation and management process. These actions are as follows: (i) data acquisition, (ii) data processing, (iii) information management and (iv) curation. The study conducted digital context capturing methods, image-based (photogrammetry) and range-based (terrestrial laser scanning) techniques, for the data acquisition step. Next, the research analyzed the material culture of the remains on the data processing phase. Rendering the synthesis and intervention decisions is the third step for conservation actions process. On the last phase, the workflow utilized heritage building information modelling (HBIM) platform for the curation process. Consequently, this study offers a state-of-the-art management workflow of the multi-dimensional heritage information modelling and a novel integration method into the conservation process paradigm. The offered method is open to adjustments and calibration for other cultural heritage artefacts and intended to be as comprehensive as possible for benefiting different heritage applications at large.