Multiple Techniques Approach to the 3D Virtual Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

According to an UNESCO survey, Italy accounts for more than half of the Cultural Heritage of the entire world. Italy’s Cultural Heritage therefore represents an enormous wealth not only for the country itself but also for the entire world and this asset should be preserved and documented for future generations and possibly used as source of revenues. Within the relevant methods of the Information Technology which can be applied to Cultural Heritage, that of accurate and realistic 3D "shape capture" of art works has been challenging the scientific community since a long time because an extremely high degree of realism is required. Thereby the virtual reconstruction of cultural heritage sites is becoming a significant field of application in the 3D modeling area. This paper proposes an integrated approach based upon a seamless combination of different 3D measurement techniques for the virtual reconstruction of complex architectures. Depending on the required spatial resolutions, different techniques can be used and at the end all the acquired data have to be integrated into a single 3D model. As example the model of a castle located in Trentino (Italy) was done using surveying, 3D laser scanner, close-range and aerial photogrammetry.