Historical planimetric traces and movement analysis: development of a dedicated software

Abstract

This work presents a MATLAB software developed for the analysis of planimetric traces and the identification of intersection points along two-dimensional trajectories. The program, modular and flexible, allows visualization of raw data, optional processing such as oversampling and filtering, and the generation of quantitative and graphical representations of movements. The main application concerns historical 1904 data of the Garisenda Tower in Bologna, digitized from
paper records, allowing comparison with the original observations. The analysis highlights both short cycles, such as daily or weekly, and longer-term movements, demonstrating the software’s capability to enhance historical data and present them in a modern, interpretable form. This work is part of a series of studies on temporal series, aimed at developing a comprehensive tool for fine analysis of the dynamics of historical structures, also applicable to the processing of analogous
planimetric series in other contexts.