The DURAARK Project – Long-Term Preservation of Architectural 3D-Data

For centuries two-dimensional presentations of objects have been predominant in the depiction of architecture. In building research traditional methods still establish the basis supported by geodesic instruments – like the tachymeter – as an integral part of fieldwork, whose results will then be transferred into CAD plans by means of point clouds. As digital technologies are gradually taking over, these two-dimensional point clouds and drafts are completed by three-dimensional methods of recording and presenting. In this way the preservation of scientific and cultural heritage is increasingly linked to the maintenance of the long-term availability of digital information, for which no general strategy has been developed yet. In the cultural heritage domain, a digital representation may exist as a documentary representation of an existing object. However, in some cases, it may also be the only remaining documentation of an (analogue) object which has been destroyed or lost. Thus, on the one hand, a mixture of analogue materials, like notes and sketches, as well as “born digitals”, like CAD drawings and laser-scans, have to be coped with today. On the other hand, technological problems have to be solved, e.g. the aging of hardware or proprietary data formats. Another, not less alarming problem is constituted by cultural oblivion, e.g. information may have been omitted when documenting the object, because it was taken for granted, or considered part of the knowledge of the contemporary target-groups. However, to what extent do such problems concern institutions like the TIB? The German National Library of Science and Technology – TIB – functions as a national library for the subject matters of engineering, architecture, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics. 1 It hosts the cooperatively operated digital preservation system of Goportis, 2 a consortium consisting of the German National Subject Libraries. TIB is responsible for the procurement and archival storage of specialized technical scientific literature from all over the world, providing the national and international research community and the industry with in-depth information. In addition to textual documents TIB is engaged in many different kinds of media such as research data, software, as well as scientific films, simulations and 3D-objects. Until recently the focus of digital preservation has mainly been on text and still images and state of the art knowledge has yet to be applied to other materials, like architectural data. Filling gaps in architectural data is the assignment of the DURAARK project with the participation of the Leibniz University of Hanover, closely affiliated with TIB.