Virtual modelling through human vision sense

The restoration/renovation of historic buildings has become an important facet of the construction industry, which can generate large economic benefits, drawn from the increased commercial value of these buildings and its surrounding area in terms of tourism and investment, apart from other non-priced benefits associated with user satisfaction. In this context, the rapid generation of tridimensional computer models from existent large objects like historic buildings can be particularly important either for building re-use, virtual museums or others patrimonial applications. This paper proposes a new biologically based computer tool, called BioCAD that mimics the human vision process. This system was specifically designed for the rapid and accurate generation of 3D computer models from existing large objects and can be integrated with other computer-based technologies. Two case studies were chosen to validate the system and to demonstrate its integration with rapid prototyping and Haptic CAD systems.