Perspective Between Representation and AR: the Apse of the Church of St. Ignatius

Abstract

This contribution studies the ways in which Augmented Reality (AR) can communicate and disseminate knowledge about our cultural heritage in general and, in particular, Architectural Perspectives (AP). The focus is to increase our knowledge and understanding of perspective technique and how the latter deals with the unique mix between the real architectural environment and an illusory space, in this case the decorations of the presbytery and apse of the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome. The specific objective of the study is the possibility to use the Pozzo' s treatise to "augment" its fruition, accompanied by a virtual visit in order to gather more in-depth information about the perspective construction that creates the effect of spatial expansion thanks to this expedient. This decoration is in fact one of the rare cases of a perspective representation of a pictorial project, in turn also a perspective designed by Pozzo; this design is the "activation" element of an AR experience that immediately illustrates the perspective bravura of its creator.

Ar Exploration of the Perspective/Architectural Space Painted by Perugino

“…In particular, AR is activated by the inlay itself (imagebased tracking system), and considerations include: 1) creating the window effect, i.e., the 3D model must be perceived beyond the image/marker; 2) ensuring that beyond the 'window' on the 'augmented' space, elements of the real space are no longer visible; 3) defining a frame that delimits the real space from the virtual space so that the perspective depth effect activated with AR is more effective. The last research examined (Fasolo et al, 2022) concerns the apse of the church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, a work by Andrea Pozzo. This apse appears in a perspective engraving inside Pozzo's treatise (Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum, 1693-1700), which is used as a marker to activate the display of a portion of the 3D architectural model of the church, showing where the perspective picture plane is located relative to the architecture.…”