Il rilievo della chiesa rupestre della Madonna delle Virtù a Matera

The diffusion of 3D measurement acquisition techniques is allowing, in the architectural field, the development of a large amount of updated metric data and, together with other possibilities that may arise, also the comparative study with past surveys. The measurements obtained with the new instruments, on the one hand have allowed to analyze the metric reliability of the old surveys, on the other they have allowed, in some cases, to reread the compositional logic of the architectural project and to trace new meanings remained in long latent. If, in the context of the historical built, the deviations of the new measures can be limited to a few centimeters, for the structures carved in the rock the situation is different. the survey of the rock church of the Madonna delle Virtù in Matera, the subject of this contribution, conducted with a laser scanner and digital photogrammetry, becoming an opportunity to deepen the study of issues related to the creation and management of meshes and to experiment and propose the representational mode most suited to the nature of the techniques used and this type of architectures.