A Workflow for Urban Heritage Digitization: From UAV Photogrammetry to Immersive VR Interaction with Multi-Layer Evaluation

Abstract

Highlights: What are the main findings? An end-to-end workflow integrates UAV photogrammetry, LiDAR, and VR for heritage. Three-layer evaluation shows focused attention, edge-anchored movement, and clearer cultural understanding. What is the implication of the main finding? UAV-enabled completeness improves both geometric fidelity and user experience in VR. The workflow is affordable and transferable, supporting under-resourced heritage sites. Urban heritage documentation often separates 3D data acquisition from immersive interaction, limiting both accuracy and user impact. This study develops and validates an end-to-end workflow that integrates UAV photogrammetry with terrestrial LiDAR and deploys the fused model in a VR environment. Applied to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Rovigo, Italy, the approach achieves centimetre-level registration, completes roofs and upper façades that ground scanning alone cannot capture, and produces stable, high-fidelity assets suitable for real-time interaction. Effectiveness is assessed through a three-layer evaluation framework encompassing vision, behavior, and cognition. Eye-tracking heatmaps and scanpaths show that attention shifts from dispersed viewing to concentrated focus on landmarks and panels. Locomotion traces reveal a transition from diffuse roaming to edge-anchored strategies, with stronger reliance on low-visibility zones for spatial judgment. Post-VR interviews confirm improved spatial comprehension, stronger recognition of cultural values, and enhanced conservation intentions. The results demonstrate that UAV-enabled completeness directly influences how users perceive, navigate, and interpret heritage spaces in VR. The workflow is cost-effective, replicable, and transferable, offering a practical model for under-resourced heritage sites. More broadly, it provides a methodological template for linking drone-based data acquisition to measurable cognitive and cultural outcomes in immersive heritage applications.