VIRTUAL RECONSTRUCTION IN RECOVERY METALLURGICAL HERITAGE OF ALMADEN MINES

Mercury is a liquid and valued metal that has many applications, unknown by the majority of the persons like its methods of extraction from the mineral cinnabar. These extractive techniques, which represented an important technological exchange between Almaden and several mining towns in Asturias, Europe and America, justify its value through virtual recovery process. This article shows that the virtual reconstruction, as culmination of a process and methodology based on computer-aided design and computer animation, supposes today the only alternative to traditional reconstruction from the Engineering Graphics, especially for those elements or processes that are part of the historical industrial heritage and which not have survived to the time. In this way, prevents these techniques to pass into oblivion, bringing all this vast metallurgical heritage of Almaden Mines at the service of Humanity as virtual heritage. Two of the most representative types of metallurgy of Almaden mercury, which are already disappeared, have been chosen for the virtual reconstructions: Idria and Spirek furnaces. This paper allows you to visit the interior and exterior to them, as well as to the elements of the industrial process that was taking there.