Restoring Disappeared Heritage Environments. The Girona Cathedral Recontextualization

Advances in photogrammetry and immersive visualization through virtual reality (VR) provide the opportunity to restore disappeared or decontextualized heritage environments to their original splendor. A paradigmatic case is that of the Spanish Gothic stalls, most of them currently dismantled and in the best-case scenario, partially exposed in different locations. The present work, based on a previous work of digital recontextualization of similar heritage environments carried out by the authors, develops a VR application that enables interactive visualization of the interior of Girona Cathedral, incorporating heritage elements currently missing or decontextualized such as its ancient Gothic choir. The proposal allows users to ‘revisit’ the nave and visualize it as it was originally conceived, in a hyper-realistic way, at any time and from anywhere. Photogrammetry techniques have been used to reconstruct the decontextualized elements, and they have been repositioned within the virtual model in their original position. Their incorporation into the application offers users the opportunity to switch between the current and original states, allowing them to establish hypotheses about their original conditions and configuration. This approach represents a novel strategy for the study and dissemination of decontextualized heritage.