On the generation of numerical models from point clouds for the analysis of damaged Cultural Heritage

Nowadays, a growing necessity for preservation and documentation of the Cultural Heritage is related to the precise 3D surveys as the input for multidisciplinary analysis. An efficient tool that meets the aforementioned requirement is the HBIM approach, linked to numerical models for structural analysis. In this context, the innovative CLOUD2FEM procedure, which semi-automatically generates numerical models from point clouds, has been applied to the surveyed point clouds - obtained by laser scanning - in a complex case study of a damaged building: the San Felice sul Panaro Fortress (Italy), hit by a severe earthquake in 2012. The numerical model generated is employed in the framework of advanced seismic nonlinear analysis. The promising results show the effectiveness of the method.