228 eCAADe 24 - session 5: digital design education The Visualization – Visual Comparative Analysis of Early Romanesque Churches Robert Barelkowski 1 , Jerzy Chodor 2 1 Polish Academy of Sciences Poznan Branch, 2 Academy of Management in Legnica robert@armageddon.com.pl The paper presents educative aspects of visualization techniques performed in order to achieve the visual comparison of early romanesque or pre-romanesque churches of rotunda type. It explains and renders how computer techniques are used in order to achieve reliable basis for comparison of dimensions, volumetrics, material, proportions and other features. Keywords: visualisation; computer aided education; computer aided research; reconstruction. The concept of the application The process of education in history of architecture is about explanation of facts and achievements often related to non-existing objects. Once erected they were transformed, converted, demolished or de- stroyed in the course of events of the past, clouding the perception of original shapes and forms, which may be decoded most times from nothing more than the remnants of foundation parts. Certainly this is the case when it comes to discuss the problems of early buildings from the very beginning of European cul- ture. An idea was developed to form an addendum to the program of education in history of architecture to illuminate deeper the signifcant issues and aspects of history of buildings. The concept was to use CAD and visualization technologies to fulfll this aim. The implementation of CAD techniques in the pro- cess of teaching of history of architecture has the pur- pose of joining various important pieces of information on monuments from distant past in order to broaden the understanding of what these monuments were, how they were built and what it meant for builders of the ancient times to undertake such constructions (cf. Agostinho, 2005). Encouraging students to visualize the non-existent objects according to specifed meth- od gives them opportunity to place themselves in the role of master builder e.g. from medieval times. The “Ar- cHiVist” program introduces visualization techniques to embrace the concepts of form, structure, building tech- niques and referential or comparative information. The assimilation of historical knowledge is se- lective. Very often it leads to oversimplifcation and misleading ideas that can be avoided only when ex- plaining the roots of architectural solutions. A good example is the idea of rotunda type, early roman- esque churches in Poland and the gallery (empora), where place for prince or king was reserved, with its relevance to the presence or absence of other ar- chitectural structures in the area. The rotunda type of churches was selected to be the main subject of the program because of its structural simplicity. It seemed to be the most efcient way to implement visualization techniques by forcing students to work with relatively simple objects – CAD was used as me- dia to understand aspects of history of architecture.