Visual communication strategies for BIM-driven heritage reconstruction: A systematic review and evidence-based taxonomy

Abstract

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is being applied to the documentation, conservation and digital reconstruction of heritage buildings, but technically complex models are not necessarily good at communicating reconstruction knowledge. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) brings together the evidence of visual communication in BIM/HBIM, digital heritage, uncertainty representation, information visualisation and visual cognition. After applying the PRISMA process, 204 records were identified and screened, resulting in an evidence base of 106 sources: 60 core peer-reviewed studies and 46 supplementary theoretical, contextual, methodological and cross-domain sources. Visual strategies, mechanisms, information and evidence types, and cognitive/communicative functions were extracted from the literature using a structured matrix. Four coherent functional clusters were synthesized: Information Structuring and Interpretability, Information Reduction and Selective Representation, Perceptual Differentiation and Evidential Coding, and Representational Consistency and Coherence. These were conceptualised as Interpretive Clarity, Visual Simplicity, Contrast Differentiation, and Visual Harmony. Dual Coding Theory (DCT) was then used as an explanatory framework, not as a coding framework. The review provides an evidence-based taxonomy that separates the principles of higher order visual communication from their implementing mechanisms, and moves the focus from what digital heritage models can show to how the information for reconstruction should be structured, selected, differentiated and coordinated for subsequent professional evaluation and guideline development