The architectural 3D survey vs archaeological 3D survey

Abstract

Summary form only given. In the last few years, the field of building architecture and archaeology survey's trend has been to implement a methodology which essentially converges to several procedures used indiscriminately in both environments. Such a methodology consists of: a first phase of data acquisition, carried out through well-established 3D survey's procedures, which merges range based and image based model, linked to a database; a second phase of data processing and feature extraction of the relieved object and a third phase, following closely the previous two, of 3D modelling restitution organized by elements with related data. Our research focus is to define specific procedures usable in the two environments and to make them more objective through the development of original algorithms which automatize several steps. Our proposed pipeline, both in the field of archaeological and architectural survey, consists of a first and essentially univocal phase of data acquisition and organization whose product is an implemented point cloud, organized by separate 3D elements linked with a corresponding database. It's in the second phase of data processing where the two procedures substantially diverge: in the case of archaeological structure survey we propose to generate a triangulated mesh aimed to obtain continuous and textured 3D models of the single fragments. Feature extraction is applied on the mesh model, through original focused algorithms, after its orientation in the original reference system. Moreover, in the specific case of virtual reconstruction, we use a reference model based on the knowledge and analysis of the database, in which every single fragment will be repositioned following its hypothetical original place. In the case of architectural survey the mesh definition procedure is not needed for featu