Rediscovering the Forgotten Bibliographic Heritage: The Phygital Edition of Geometria Delle Forme. Trasformazione Di Poliedri by Roberto Corazzi

Libraries have always represented knowledge environments par excellence, yet the new generations, though continuing to frequent them to study, are more inclined to use digital tools in their learning process rather than the books housed on the shelves. Through Augmented Reality it is possible to guide the reader on their journey to rediscover the intangible heritage preserved in the pages of often forgotten books. In descriptive geometry texts, in particular, the integration of three-dimensional digital contents that can be experienced through Augmented Reality makes it possible to interpose, from the representation and interpretation of the drawings collected therein, the digital model that makes the spatial problem underlying the two-dimensional image visible. The resulting, quite novel, phygital edition respects the physical consistency of the book and at the same time expands its scientific contents into virtual space. This way, the transmission of the knowledge contained in the volume is also guaranteed for the new generations, leveraging their greater confidence with digital language to bring them closer to understanding and appreciating graphic language. The possibility of bringing a problem of descriptive geometry back into space, albeit virtual, has obvious advantages in terms of understanding, especially when the properties of the shapes and the relationships established between them may be difficult to interpret when observed from a single, static, point of view, as happens with the pages of traditional books: and this is the case, for example, of the transformations that occur with Polyhedra. To show the potential of this approach, an initial experiment was conducted on the book Geometria delle forme. Trasformazione di poliedri by Roberto Corazzi, found in the library of the Department of History, Design and Restoration of Architecture of the Sapienza University of Rome.