Restoration and Development of Urban Heritage Sites (Rehabilitation of Middle cities and Heritage towns)

There are various restoration methods and techniques that would help specialists whether planners, designers and archeologists to study historical sites and their valued heritage buildings in various cities at Egypt as Alexandria governorate which is considered as one of heritage towns. One of these techniques is Virtual Reality (VR) that could be used to improve the field of Virtual Heritage (VH) which is directed towards accurate representation of historic structures in urban heritage sites, objects or artefacts. Beside, using Geographical Information System (GIS) and Google earth model to define these urban heritage sites accurately with all database related to the specific area under study. Digital models of historical buildings and its urban spaces only give a sense of precision for their historical values. Yet, human attitude and cultural traditions remain a gap in current research and advanced technology in heritage visualization. So, Virtual Heritage Environments (VHE) suffers from the lack of ‘thematic interactivity’ due to the limited cultural heritage content and engaging modules largely used in photorealistic systems. So, this paper focuses in using various digital restoration techniques and methods to investigate and incorporate a cultural-feed into digital platforms of VH especially at Alexandria in Egypt as Qaitbay castle plaza. This site discusses a conceptual and practical workflow for the development of virtual heritage platforms as a research area, educational purpose. The study includes engagement tool of historic conservation in Alexandria, brings historic spaces and buildings to users in detailed studies whether researchers or students.  The results of the research would be used for the renewal of the current plaza of Qaitbay castle by making it more attractive. Also, this plaza is considered as a tourist and historical area as well as the organization for paths of movement and transforming the work places for sale from street vendors to organized markets. The scenario was realized by integrating low-cost Virtual Reality (VR) techniques, as the Kolor Panotour Pro software, some tools as Oculus Rift DK2 and the Leap Motion controller. Further, the 3D virtual model was implemented by integrated steps through Virtual Tours and Informational Modeling (VT/IM) to improve real urban data of heritage sites. The paper describes the process for optimizing the 3D virtual model, the implementation of the interactive scenario and the results of a proposed 3D VT/IM of redesigning model for the Qaitbay Castle Plaza. Finally, the paper predicts future research directions for virtual reality, with a particular focus on interaction interfaces and explores the implications for the cultural heritage domain.