Acquisition of a three-dimensional virtual model using popular cameras

ABSTRACT: Generation of precise and, at the same time, high resolution architectural documentation, acquired on the basis of terrestrial laser scanning or dense point clouds from digital images is still and open issue, which forms many challenges. Today, close range photogrammetry has great potential for development through the use of low-cost image acquisition tools. Mobile phones, digital camcorders or compact cameras are all sources of data, which potentially allow for the creation of reliable and accurate three-dimensional models of analysed scenes. This paper presents the results of a comparison between these aforementioned sources of image information, acquired by simple and popular cameras, and data acquired from a close range laser scanner. These sets of photos produced several virtual models of small architectural details, supported by Agisoft software. A final rating was conducted using data acquired for the same object using a laser scanner, which was taken as a referential approximation of the three-dimensional shape.