Abstract
With digital globes like Google Earth or Microsoft Bing Maps the access to virtual, geo-referenced 3D data has become considerably easier and these sources of information are now frequently used by a worldwide audience. The underlying technologies in sensors and data processing have strongly influenced many disciplines and have led in many cases to completely novel as to how the work is conducted, with new possibilities for improved data acquisition, processing, analysis, representation, and dissemination. Archaeology and cultural heritage are definitely among those fields that have drawn many advantages from this situation. Advanced 3D modelling of landscapes, sites, single architectures, statues, findings, and artefacts have given the experts in the field and office new tools for better analysis and interpretation of processes, developments, and relations.
This article, after a brief review of the currently available sensor technology and an introduction to the photogrammetric data acquisition and processing procedures, will show how this technology works and what kind of products can be generated. We will touch upon the use of satellite, aerial, and terrestrial images, but also address laser scanning and structured light systems. The use of different imaging sensors in the case of the recording of large sites will be shown, presenting results from our Bamiyan, Afghanistan project. With our Tucume, Peru project we will demonstrate how we can go back in time using image-based techniques. With different examples of terrestrial applications we emphasize the wide variety of available sensors and applications.
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Notes
- 1.
Editor’s note: Compare the contribution by Weiler in this volume on the role of photography in colonial archaeology and restoration.
- 2.
Editor’s note: These strictly surface-oriented virtual models stand in concurrence of structural models which are generated on the basis of detailed material and building research and archaeology on site (compare Toubekis/Jansen in this volume) and generic renderings to explore chronological developments of an architectural site through different periods of time (compare Cunin). A surface-oriented rendering through photographical documentation is to a certain extent comparable to the older technique of plaster casting where selected decorative surfaces of architectural ensembles were copied, transferred, and inserted into new substitutive models of the ‘real site’ (compare the contribution by Baptiste in this volume). Nguonphan/Bock present another option in this volume where decorative details of Angkorian temple structures are surveyed and converted into digital elements in order to reconstitute the whole temple structure on the basis of its decorative system.
- 3.
For a comprehensive list of these projects consult the webpage. www.igp.ethz.ch/photogrammetry/research/projects. Accessed 25 July, 2011.
- 4.
Editor’s note: A concrete case of the application of virtual models for restoration strategies on site is discussed by Sanday in this volume. Cunin’s contribution, however, does not necessarily focus on restoration measures per se but on the theoretical establishing of buildings chronologies and typologies.
- 5.
Editor’s note: Contributions of Nguonphan, Cunin, and Chermayeff in this volume discuss the application of virtual models of archaeological sites in the edutainment sector.
- 6.
Editor’s note: It is interesting to compare Gruen’s virtual models of the Bamiyan Buddhas from the perspective of image- and surface-based technology for the great public attention and effect with the same case study in the contribution of Toubekis/Jansen in which the renderings of the Bamiyan Buddhas serve as a basis of applied building archaeology and structural restoration work. In both cases, the images have a suggestive quality for the addressed customers. The interpretation of the results, however, highly depends on the background knowledge of the spectators.
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ISPRS: Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
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Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Drs. Devrim Akca, Henri Eisenbeiss, Fabio Remondino, Martin Sauerbier, and Zhang Li for their very valuable contributions to this paper.
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Gruen, A. (2013). Reality-Based Virtual Models in Cultural Heritage. In: Falser, M., Juneja, M. (eds) 'Archaeologizing' Heritage?. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35870-8_6
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