Using Harvested Images for 3D Reconstruction of the Demolished Château de Noisy

Château de Noisy also known as Miranda Castle was a neo-Gothic castle located in Celles, Belgium, dating back to the 19th century. This castle which was completely abandoned since 1991 due to its very high maintenance cost, gradually deteriorated and was demolished in 2017. While abandoned, château de Noisy was for many years a famous destination for urban explorers. Urban exploration or urbex is the exploration of human-made spaces that are usually inaccessible and hidden away from the general public. In their visits to abandoned buildings, urban explorers create iconographic materials in the form of photos and videos which can be valuable resources in documenting the urbex historic sites. Regardless of the social and political complexities of this phenomenon, urban exploration is intertwined with abandoned historic sites and in recent years the potential of urban exploration for preservation of heritage has been brought to the attention of academia. In the case of château de Noisy, the customary methods of documentation of a historic site which require physical access and presence are not applicable. Hence, focusing on Flickr, an image and video hosting website which has become a significant repository of urban exploration photographs, by utilizing the existing digital tools and software, this research investigates the potential of urbex produced materials for creating a new approach in the documentation and digital reconstruction of this demolished historic site. Using the Flickr API service in combination with Python Scripting Language, the relevant Flickr datasets are collected, visualized and analysed to uncover potential insights into the urban exploration scene. Additionally, the Flickr images of Château de Noisy were retrieved which contain information on diverse aspects of this abandoned building over the course of many years. By employing the ContextCapture software with selected images and videos of the castle, a 3D mesh model of the building and its immediate context is created. This scalable 3D reality model can be used in diverse ways: it can allow a flexible interactive experience of the site and be converted to an immersive experience in which the viewer can move around and explore the site at their will. Or it can be used by experts to curate an experience of this demolished historic site, guiding the audience around the building while providing information about its past life. This 3D model can be used as a base to load additional information regarding this demolished historic site allowing the preservation of the story of this building and its relevant heritage information. The method explored in this research can also be implemented in other demolished or inaccessible historic sites. The urbex photos and videos can shed light on such unknown places, and with the right utilization can not only document and digitally preserve some aspects of the valuable historic sites but also can bring public attention to heritage sites that may still be saved from deterioration and revived