Thanks to the use of non-invasive techniques and remote sensing in a 19th century building, it was possible to demonstrate that said building is a lost part of the Cáceres wall. This wall was believed to maintain the straight line from a known section, but remote sensing makes it clear that at that point the wall makes a break creating a door of which there was no record. Once this premise was confirmed, an ideal reconstruction hypothesis was developed. For this, the work base was taken on the data collected in an exhaustive data collection process, which launched millions of control points and facilitated in theorizing the original state of this lost section. The HBIM methodology greatly facilitated the process, and will allow for possible modifications with an IFC file as advances are made in that area. Finally, the research proposes an architectural project path that takes into account the data obtained remotely, and that achieves the inclusion of this part of the city in cultural interest and, of course, in a protected and cataloged area.

The objective of this article is to generate and validate a workflow that allows us to use virtual twins obtained from unique buildings of our architectural heritage. These twins will guarantee the preservation and dissemination of cultural assets and will promote universal accessibility through new technologies, such as databases, metaverses, virtual reality, augmented reality or gamification. This universal accessibility is based on new metaverses to offer experiences that allow us to overcome physical barriers and reach any user regardless of their economic or physical condition or their location. To obtain this workflow, we worked with digital twins obtained by photogrammetry. Different databases and metaverses were studied, understanding them as new systems for the representation and dissemination of architecture. These metaverses were critically assessed and screened, looking for the most suitable one to be integrated into an effective workflow that satisfies a series of imposed premises, such as being suitable for use in virtual reality and augmented reality environments. The ultimate goal is the aforementioned universal accessibility.

Heritage is under constant pressure to be adapted for tourism. The aim of this research was to improve the performance of both the tourism sector and the cultural heritage sector in a balanced and sustainable way, by considering the principles of conservation and preservation. Non-invasive tools such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), and even virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have been used to develop new methodologies, allowing us to generate new experiences and heritage tourist attractions, which not only do not generate negative impacts on the monuments themselves, but also promote their preservation without diminishing the cultural and tourist offers of the city. A case study was carried out on Mérida, a UNESCO World Heritage City, where tourism is a strong economic engine of the city. The results obtained are two-fold: on one hand, an effective interdisciplinary working methodology for heritage management was developed, and on the other hand, new approaches for the sustainable development of cultural tourism were generated.

Currently, there are heritage assets that have been extensively studied and documented, but sometimes this information is not fully accessible to users. The aim of this research was to establish protocols and methodologies to promote collaborative work between the disciplines of architecture, restoration, and archaeology, through the results offered by Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools, and to use them for Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM). The methodology applied employed data collection with fast and low-cost tools (UAV) to subsequently generate a photogrammetric survey to serves as the basis for three-dimensional modelling. In this parametric model we implement all the information obtained by professionals from different disciplines, which also serves as a means to publicise and disseminate the heritage asset. The case study was the archaeological site of Columbarios, located in Mérida, a UNESCO World Heritage City. We obtained an effective interdisciplinary work methodology for heritage management under a collaborative BIM environment. The study has allowed us to make the archaeological remains available to visit from anywhere in the world through Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology.

This article illustrates a data acquisition methodological process based on Structure from Motion (SfM) processing confronted with terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) and integrated into a Historic Building Information Model (HBIM) for architectural Heritage’s management. This process was developed for the documentation of Cáceres’ Almohad wall bordering areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The case study’s aim was the analysis, management and control of a large urban area where the urban growth had absorbed the wall, making it physically inaccessible. The methodology applied was the combination of: clouds and meshes obtained by SfM; with images acquired from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Single Lens Reflex (SLR) and terrestrial photogrammetry; and finally, with clouds obtained by TLS. The outcome was a smart-high-quality three-dimensional study model of the inaccessible urban area. The final result was two-fold. On one side, there was a methodological result, a low cost and accurate smart work procedure to obtain a three-dimensional parametric HBIM model that integrates models obtained by remote sensing. On the other side, a patrimonial result involved the discovery of a XII century wall’s section, that had supposedly been lost, that was hidden among the residential buildings. The article covers the survey campaign carried out by the research team and the techniques applied.