Great Pompeii Project Information System

The Information System of the Great Pompeii Project

As part of the Great Pompeii Project (GPP), the development of the Information System (SI-GPP) made it possible to create a single knowledge and management tool for the entire city of Pompeii. The system serves as a central reference point for all interventions, inspection activities, scheduled conservation, construction site monitoring, simulations, public access and management of the Archaeological Site. The work carried out by the Superintendency, not only within the Great Pompeii Project, requires a high degree of systematisation. It was therefore essential to adopt a system capable of collecting all data relating to the Pompeii site in a consistent and uniform manner, including both pre-existing data and those produced as part of the Knowledge Plan, through interventions already included in the GPP and future investigations. The system is made available to all stakeholders involved in various capacities in the management and conservation of the Archaeological Site of Pompeii.
The solution, entirely Web-Oriented and based on Open Source technologies, was developed by integrating multiple technologies, including GeoServer for map publishing, Alfresco (DMS) for document management and archiving, Activiti (WfMS) for workflow design and management, and many others. Numerous functions were developed in Java and JavaScript for the implementation of the application modules.

This section provides a brief overview of some of the functions of the main application modules developed within the SI-GPP:

• Editing and Consultation Environment (descriptive and geographical data)
• Inspection Activities Environment
• Scheduled Conservation Environment
• Construction Site Management Environment

Editing and Consultation Environment
It provides all the tools required to manage and consult the descriptive data and geospatial data relating to the entities that make up the archaeological site. The objects managed by the system range from the administrative subdivision of the site (Site, Regio and Insula) to roads and street numbering, built structures (including cadastral units, rooms/spaces, ancient furnishings, surfaces and surface decorations), as well as modern furnishings, safety and protection elements and utility networks. A subsequent release is planned to expand this initial set of objects by adding elements describing archaeological excavations, from test trenches to stratigraphic units.

Ambiente Attività Ispettive
This module provides all the tools required to manage and monitor the process of acquiring diagnostic data, documentation and survey data, as well as mapping deterioration and materials as part of the Inspection Campaigns. Within the Knowledge Plan, this module enabled the archiving of over 59,000 deterioration records by operators from the contracted companies. The solution is used by: Project Managers, Execution Managers, Coordinators and Operators of the appointed companies. Depending on their assigned profile, users participate in the procedural workflow during the various stages of the Inspection Campaigns.

Scheduled Conservation Environment
It provides tools for analysing the data acquired during the inspection campaigns in order to plan conservation measures and ordinary and extraordinary maintenance activities. The solution is made available to Officers responsible for the Intervention Project and its Designers. Here too, depending on their assigned profile, users participate in the procedural workflow during the various Planning stages (scenario analysis) and Design stages (Preliminary, Final and Executive).
Intervention Design
For each intervention, a workflow guides users through the Preliminary and Final Design stages assigned to a Designer and ensures a validation process for the documentation produced by the Responsible Officer.

Construction Site Management Environment
It provides tools for managing and monitoring construction sites, with particular attention to the impact that works may have on access to and use of the Archaeological Site. For this purpose, a GIS function allows construction site areas to be defined in order to identify the archaeological areas affected and to carry out spatial and temporal analyses of the coexistence of different construction sites. The solution is used by the stakeholders involved in carrying out the interventions: Officers responsible for the Intervention Project and its Designers. Users participate in the intervention execution process according to their assigned profile.