is an open access repository that collects the work of Arts et Métiers ParisTech researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible. This paper describes an interactive platform for the semantic annotation of oriented iconographic sources based on an accurate 3D model structured according to spatial and temporal features. This platform, called LOCUS IMAGINIS, provides access to cultural information about monuments by collecting personal snapshots taken by visitors. In particular, the platform enables to perform two actions. Firstly, pictures are added into the database: visitors manually align images to the digital model of the monument and than, by means of automatic procedures, images are enriched with 2D semantic annotations that are projected from the 3D model. Secondly, the collection of semantically-enriched data can be queried: when visitors select 2D images of the database, these are oriented in the 3D scene and superimposed onto the 3D model. In this way, this tool provides access to textual and graphic information describing the photographed site (semantic, spatial, temporal features, etc.). Moreover, visitors can interact both with images and the 3D-model to highlight building parts by color. Accessible on-site and on-line, this tool can create awareness about conservation and is adapted to all kinds of audience: students involved in educational workshops, visitors needing to extend their visit, and documentalists interested in the consultation of the iconographic corpus.

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Abstract─Like most Chinese imperial tombs, the tomb of Emperor Qianlong consists of a suite of four rooms forming a underground space of 372 m2. Its originality lies in the inscriptions which are engraved on the walls and vaults and exclusively in Tibetan (30,000 characters) and Lantsa (600 characters). In the project we present here, all engravings were digitized and a large part of them have been identified. Their identification has highlighted the idea which was certainly at the base of ornamental program of the Qianlong's tomb: the choice of texts and their particular arrangement was used to virtually reconstruct a "stupa" : a Buddhist funerary monument. So the study and representation of script engravings and iconography of the tomb opened the general issue of finding an original solution to explain, from a visual and semantic point of view, the relationship of two parallel dimensions. On the one hand, the description of the morphology of the tomb through the spatial structure of geometric entities in a 3D model (collection of architectural forms and spatial relationships), on the other hand, the description of knowledge related to the Tibetan funeral rituals (abstract concepts and semantic relations). The formalized and represented textual and graphics data become accessible within an analytical support (information system) allowing to explore the relationship between the conceptual and spatial dimensions of the tomb through three interactive devices interconnected: a real-time 3D scene for exploring the physical space, a dynamic graph for navigating within a network of interconnected concepts, an graphic schema displaying the theoretical position of each conceptual and spatial entity within the representation of a virtual stupa.

By some time, the scientific community wonders about some other possible applications of 3D models to the practices of the project, the survey, the conservation and the communication. The recent and continuous developments of technology allow to design new techniques for data processing. In particular, the process of information integration involves all areas mentioned before: from BIM systems (Building Information Modeling) to GIS software (Geographic Information System). Sometimes they are shareware software, such as ArchiCAD and Revit, some other times open source software, freely editable and expandable according to the specific requirements of users, that allow multiple processes at different levels of abstraction: from symbolic/diagrammatic representations to iconic and isomorphic ones. The aim of the study, conducted in collaboration with the MAP Gamsau Laboratory in Marseille, is for a new analysis method and a new use of 3D models of the built heritage, first investigating the necessary characteristics to identify each architectural element to compile a database: from its morphology, to the hierarchical relationships, class and topological ones, and the nomenclature; secondly a strategy of representation that allows the use of the model, intended as a cognitive system, which uses conceptual graphs to navigate simultaneously the semantic layer and the 3D model. In particular, this methodology has been applied to the 3D model of the Centre Pompidou and to the Château Comtal one, taking advantage of the open-source platform "Nubes Visum" currently being developed at the MAP Gamsau Laboratory in Marseille. Semantic models, Information Systems, Database, Morphology, Topology I. DIGITAL MODELS. GEOMETRICAL DESCRIPTION AND REPRESENTATIONTechnologies and techniques used for architectural representation have, over time, established multiple modes of modeling the reality and to design. These are processes that can be compared in very different ways with the concept of similarity with reality [1]. The model, the perspective, as a twodimensional representation evoking the third dimension, which contributed to the birth of the profession of architect during the Renaissance, as well as, over time, the wide range of drawings from sketches, to axonometric representations, rather than double orthogonal projections and, today, three-dimensional digital models are important mediums for design and communication: they, in fact, can be used to evaluate formal, structural or functional hypotheses, relationships with the environment and at the same time can be used to show the project contents to the public: from clients to construction companies and to institutions. These models can be sometimes iconic and isomorphic with reality that are representing, sometimes they can be symbolic and non-isomorphic, or analogous to the real ones, and some other times they can be diagrammatic, in the form of graphic representations. In the purely applicative field, the evolution of threedimensional models, from analog to digital, over time h...