Lab History

The Virtual Innovation in Modeling the Architecture and the City lab (VIMAC), comes from the old Virtual City Modelling Lab (LMVC), which was created in 2000 by initiative of the Land Policy and Valuation Centre (CPSV), together with the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), supported by the Departments of Architectural Technology I (CA I) and Architectural Representation and Visual Analysis I (EGA I). It has been created with the aim of permitting the integration of new technologies in the study, visualization and modelling of the city, as well as to support teachers and students in the dissemination of these new technologies.

The Laboratory has maintained a direct relationship with the ETSAB and the CER-CPSV through a surveying commission to which was incorporated the Secretary of the ETSAB, Ignasi Bonmatí, by delegation of the school, and the CER director, Josep Roca, by delegation of the chief of the Department of Architectonic Constructions I, Jaume Avellaneda. Pilar García Almirall also integrated this commission, as coordinator of the Laboratory activities concerning Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Ernest Redondo, as director of the Architectural Representation and Visual Analysis I Department (followed by Luis Villanueva and Joaquín Regot) and Javier Monedero as the coordinator of the laboratory activities concerning Modelling and Visual Simulation. Since the beginning Pilar García Almirall has been nominated the director of the Laboratory, in charge of its promotion and management.

In 2001, thanks to the help of the MECyD, equipment for a GIS and 3D Work Platform was acquired and installed in the Virtual City Modelling Lab (LMVC) at the ETSAB (AFC2001-0395-LD). Since then LMVC has become a leader in the research and development of technological virtual applications that have made it a reference in the field of virtual information of the city. It is a space for the integration of new technologies for the study of geo-information and representation of the city, developing modelling, visualization and navigation projects of historical, archaeological, heritage and future environments.

The Laboratory has an important knowhow in technics for obtaining data from built reality using land laser scanner and in developments such as 3D rendering of heritage environments. And also in the use of digital cartography, Geographic Systems Information (GIS) as useful tools when analyzing historic centers. It counts on specialized material means (technical equipment and specialized software) that did not exist at the ETSAB and which various research groups need to perform their applied investigations.

From the start the LMVC was designed to provide transversatility for architectonic works that require a proper technological platform, a task directed by Pilar García Almirall and has been carried out with the support of other groups in the ETSAB, accomplishing the function of cohesion and consolidation of strategic lines and technological innovation projects in Architecture with the application of computer systems, the TIC in general - Geographic Systems Information (GIS), Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TSL), Virtual Reality (VR) and Remote Sensing (RS) - oriented to georeferentiation, parametrization and visualization of historical heritage, architectonic and urban elements.