Monitoring Time-Varying Changes of Historic Structures Through Photogrammetry-Driven Digital Twinning

TL;DR

This paper introduces a five-component digital twin framework for monitoring the time-varying deterioration of historic structures, validated on a fort casemate, addressing a critical gap in heritage preservation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel digital twin framework specifically designed to track structural deterioration over time, filling a gap in existing damage assessment methods.

Findings

Framework effectively monitors deterioration over time

Validated on Fort Soledad casemate in Guam

Addresses a key need in cultural heritage preservation

Abstract

Historic structures are important for our society but could be prone to structural deterioration due to long service durations and natural impacts. Monitoring the deterioration of historic structures becomes essential for stakeholders to take appropriate interventions. Existing work in the literature primarily focuses on assessing the structural damage at a given moment instead of evaluating the development of deterioration over time. To address this gap, we proposed a novel five-component digital twin framework to monitor time-varying changes in historic structures. A testbed of a casemate in Fort Soledad on the island of Guam was selected to validate our framework. Using this testbed, key implementation steps in our digital twin framework were performed. The findings from this study confirm that our digital twin framework can effectively monitor deterioration over time, which is an urgent need in the cultural heritage preservation community.