Abstract
The introduction to this thematic issue aims, on the one hand, to establish the current state of the art and, on the other, to discuss certain new questions on knowledge engineering and 3D modelling in the field of history and heritage. The goal was to encourage the structuring of a broad scientific community: by focusing on interdisciplinary collaborative work, involving both the humanities and social sciences and computer science, links are emerging within the French-speaking communities of various countries and continents. The analysis of the responses to the questions suggested to the authors has led us to divide this issue into three sections: knowledge modelling, 3D visualisation and the digitisation of tangible and intangible heritage. On the basis of these observations, we outline some collective avenues for the digital humanities community: constructing an investigative protocol by considering that we are dealing with new “places of knowledge” and that these constitute points of encounter and dialogue between different communities, particularly between the North and the South.