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223 José Balsa Barreiro, Dieter Fritsch 3D Modelling of historic urban centres and… Israeli housing developments in a bid to destabilise Hamas. Finally, several areas along the N-S line crossing Beirut (Lebanon) were completely destroyed during the Civil War (1975-1991), taking advantage of a political-military strategy in which foreign, cosmopolitan values that characterised certain parts of the city were demonised. The constant threat to urban environments and, in particular, to their most representative historic buildings justifies the need to develop strategies designed to further our knowledge of them from a civil and military perspective. The high building density, the superposition of elements, the arrangement of houses at different levels and/or heights, the presence of abrupt changes, etc. are some of the factors that underscore the complexity of cities17. In addition, in the case of historic city centres, other factors must be considered, such as the irregularity of the urban fabric, the presence of numerous narrow streets and areas of restricted access, etc., all of which make these environments into very complex scenarios for the development of military strategies such as the establishment of sight lines, the design of evacuation routes, the positioning of strategic enclaves, the evaluation of possible threat points, the location of transmissions and communication systems, etc. Military operations in urban terrain (UO18 or MOUT19) are very complex from a tactical and operational point of view due to the concentration of civilians and the presence of buildings. The battlefield becomes a very complicated three-dimensional scenario for all types of military makeovers, where freedom of movement is reduced and risks are exponentially increased. From a tactical point of view, urban environments facilitate defence and hinder attack, limiting the effectiveness of heavy weapons and favouring close quarters combat (CQC). Some studies consider the importance of developing 3D models in urban areas as a basis for strategic defence actions, which go beyond strictly military activities, such as the evacuation of people in the case of disasters or the provision of humanitarian aid20. However, none of these previous studies focus especially on historic city centres and/or old cities despite their very particular inherent characteristics and constraints. Moreover, most former studies focus on applications based only on airborne LiDAR systems, which allow the precise geometry of the entire urban fabric to be accurately 17  LIVINGSTON, Mark A; ROSENBLUM, Lawrence J.; JULIER, Simon J.; BROWN, Dennis; BAILLOT, Yohan; SWAN II, J. Edward; GABBARD, Joseph L., and HIX, Deborah. «An Augmented Reality System for Military Operations in Urban Terrain». In: National Training and Simulation Association, 2002, Arlington, USA, pp. 868-875. 18  Urban Operations. 19  Military Operations in Urban Terrain. 20  LETORNEAU, François. «Different Approaches for the Creation and Exploitation of 3D Urban Models», En: 7th International Command and Control Research Technology Symposium, 2002, Quebec City, Canada. NATO: «3D Modelling of Urban Terrain». RTO Technical Report (RTO-TR-SET-118). North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: Neuilly sur Seine (France), 2011, pp. 118. http://revista.ieee.es

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