Simple and quick digital techniques for the safeguard of the Cultural Heritage The Rustem Pasha in Istanbul

The cultural and natural patrimony represents the reference point, the model, the identity of a people and constitutes the inheritance of the past to transmit to the future generations. The awakening of the problem of the protection of this patrimony brought to the development, in several fields, of technologies and tools particularly suitable to its exploitation and safeguard. In the architectural field, particularly important is the activity of survey, finalized to the documentation, archiving and diffusion for the public fruition and pleasure and understanding. The research produced systems more and more simple and economic, finalized to the fulfilment of results more and more representative of the original object. Particularly innovative is the here proposed new photogrammetric technique making use of spherical panoramas for the realization of metrically correct three- dimensional models and to high quality graphical rendering. This technique is very well suited to the requirements of economization and speed, particularly for its simplicity of use mainly in the taking phase. The quality and level of details is according to the image resolution. The gathering phase consists in shooting photographic images needed for the 360° coverage of a panorama. In principle there is no need to make any measument. The images are taken with a normal digital camera and than mosaicated with a common stitching software. The plotting is performed in a monoscopic mode, observing the same point in more than one panorama. The here presented study case is the interior of Rustem Pasha mosque, one of the most beatyful jewels in Istanbul, designed by the architect Sinan in 1561, located in the Eminönü market, near the harbour of Golden Horn. The mosque is placed on the first floor of a building, where on the ground floor Rustem wanted the warehouses for his trade. The guest from the very busy and crowded ground level is lead through a tightened small space of the stairs, to the surprise of a great peaceful open space of the mosque porch. The combination between an informal wooden cover and an interior space composed by five cupolas creates a wonderful effect, intensifying the passage between the gallery and the severe mosque in stone. The great central cupola is supported by eight pillars and by the four lower smaller cupolas in a great unit of space. The decorated Iznik tiles cover the inside walls of the mosque until the base level of the cupolas. The used ceramics are of many types and of inestimable value. The resulting inner aspect is of great harmony and total unit. The final wire frame model is very detailed. The obtained immaterial architectural model, is suitable for scientific purposes, being a metric reproduction of the real object, but above all it is useful for the diffusion and protection of the cultural heritage, being synthesis of an enormous amount of qualitative and quantitive information.