Cultural Heritage at a Glance Four case studies about the perception of digital architectural 3D models

Digital 3D modelling methods have been widely applied to support research in the humanities since the 1980s. Since an academic discourse on these methods is still highly application-oriented, this article reports both completed and planned investigations that are part of an ongoing postdoc thesis work intending to draw a "big picture" of digital 3D modelling methods for humanities research on EU level. As part of this endeavor, this paper presents research approaches and findings from four investigations, particularly about the perception of visualizations generated from 3D architectural models. The focus of these studies is on the recognisability of 3D content and on the estimation of properties of the visualized architecture as well as aesthetics and plausibility of a visualization.