**2. Digital technology to preserve knowledge of heritage structure conservation and the virtual storage of data**

Since the 1990s, major projects that I have been involved with as project manager or repair works engineering designer and specifier have been recorded by progress photographs and video notes. In this way a visual and 3D record of what was done and how it was achieved has been archived. This work has now accumulated a significant archive of different types of Heritage structures and how they were investigated, repaired, or strengthened for both teaching and sharing the more innovative ideas of such sensitive repairs. The objective is then to make this recorded visual detailed information available to the current, or present-day generation of engineers or conservationists who are interested in the preservation of these types of Heritage monuments. The method of doing this in the past has been by passing this knowledge on and includes 'papers' and 'presentations' at conferences for Civil Engineering, Forensic Engineering and Heritage bodies [1]. This after many years has built up a 'legacy store' of digital data used for such presentations. In recent years the progression of technology has meant transferring all of this type of standard information usually from VHS video for projects in the 1990s to CDs and then more recently having the CD information available on hard drives in the current era. This type of data storage not only condenses a large amount of practical knowledge down into a very small space for archiving but can transfer information through the internet as required to interested parties anywhere in the world. Currently even less space for storage will be needed when storing is transferred to the next stage of archiving development in the 'Cloud' and as a by-product of 'file sharing' and 'transfer links' data sent worldwide (**Figure 1**).

#### **Figure 1.**

*1. Level – Normal hard copy files of projects, investigations, and solutions. 2. Level – Information from files and VHS video takes. on to CDs. 3. Level – Information stored on files on hard drives. 4. Level – Information available from 'cloud'.*
