Digital Historical Pavia: 3D Modeling in Educational Context for Cultural Heritage Promotion

The “Digital Historical Pavia” project aims to prove the value of digital media technologies for enhancing promotion and accessibility of Cultural Heritage, while teaching students the basics of computer graphics. It integrates technology into attractive and meaningful presentations of local cultural assets of the 14th – 16th century when the city of Pavia experienced several transformations. This paper summarizes the main results of the project showing the outcomes of three case studies: (i) the setup of an educational and experiential room for the exhibition “1525–2015. Pavia, the Battle, the Future. Nothing was the same again”; (ii) the virtual reconstruction of the city of Pavia in the Renaissance, including a timelapse of the urban evolution of the city during the 16th century; (iii) the 3D modeling of the Ark of St. Augustine, a complex funerary monument of the second half of the 14th century, and the development of a related online serious game. All the 3D models were created by students of the master’s degree in Computer Engineering of the University of Pavia, showing the potentiality of an experiential learning approach for teaching computer science and computer graphics concepts.