Physical and digital pop-ups. An AR application in the treatises on stereotomy

This paper focuses on the relationship between stereotomic traces and building construction techniques. Starting from the first essential drawings representing stone cutting methods in full scale – which are still visible in some Gothic cathedrals in France and Spain – it will be analyzed the evolution of stone cutting drawings to the most recent examples in 19th–century treatises. In particular, it will be examined the progress in terms of representation according to different centuries concentrating on the development of theory and practice. It will be therefore given a short overview of the most important Renaissance essayists dealing with changes in representation methods according to the codification of assumptions related to descriptive geometry. In the last part it will be proposed the involvement of augmented reality techniques in order to visualize and study Louis Monduit’s treatise on stereotomy through the use of digital pop–ups.