Indexation and visualization of documents in a 3D model of the St Trophime cloister over the Internet

Historical buildings are more and more digitized, photographed or measured with precision to facilitate their conservation. A second widely addressed theme is the conservation of documents relative to an archeological site, together with the growth of functions in databases that can also cover the 3D space. We propose to join these two topics using 3D geometric objects to index a spatial database. St Trophime Cloister of Arles (France) has been a scientific playground for geometry processing and 3D visualization over the Internet. In order to propose to archaeologist and cultural heritage managers an interface that will offer access to all documents related to the Cloister we developed a 3D database indexation and its selection system. Gracefully to the standards evolution of the Internet, this is made possible in a simple web browser. The documents linked to a part of the building are then selected by a visual choice in 3D. According to the user position the geometry is dynamically loaded/unloaded, the details in the visualization engine are adapted to keep a high-performance system and a sufficient quality. The support of a well known communication protocol (HTTP) also enhances the access to the application and makes the platform accessible from the public or the scientists but introduces drawbacks in the capabilities of the application (geometry loadings, memory management, network latency).