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Motivated by the need for a fast, accurate, and high-resolution approach to documenting heritage and archaeological objects before they are removed or destroyed, the goal of this paper is to develop and demonstrate advanced image-based techniques to capture the fine 3D geometric details of such objects. The size of the object may be large and of any arbitrary shape which presents a challenge to all existing 3D techniques. Although range sensors can directly acquire high resolution 3D points, they can be costly and impractical to set up and move around archaeological sites. Alternatively, image-based techniques acquire data from inexpensive portable digital cameras. We present a sequential multi-stage procedure for 3D data capture from images designed to model fine geometric details. Test results demonstrate the utility and flexibility of the technique and prove that it creates highly detailed models in a reliable manner for many different types of surface detail.

The digital documentation of cultural heritage is receiving much attention in the last few years and 3D modeling of objects or sites is one of the main research topics in this field. Many improvements have been done in the generation of digital models of culturalheritage, concerning range sensors and image based modeling. But there are still a lot of open questions and problems in deciding which technique should be employed in which situation. While in the past years, when high level of detail was required, range sensors were usually preferred to image data, nowadays, due to the considerable algorithm improvements and increase of automation in the image-based modeling process, the digitization of cultural heritage based on close-range photogrammetry covers a more and more important role. Furthermore, new sensors, working outside the visible spectrum, are nowadays available for cultural heritage documentation and preservation. Therefore the integration of all these digital information would leave to much more detailed, interesting and valuable results. In this article we present the most common techniques for heritage surveying and 3D modeling and we report examples related to the frescoed Romanino’s Loggia located in the Buonconsiglio Castle (Trento, Italy)., International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVI (5/W47), ISSN:1682-1750, ISSN:2194-9034, ISSN:1682-1777

Within the longterm research project Nasca/Palpa, which has been conducted at the group of photogrammetry and remote sensing ofETH Zurich since 1997, an archaeological GIS-database describing the famous ground drawings of thePalparegion and a wide varietyof terrain data and orthoimages were produced at different levels in terms of accuracy and spatial resolution. In order to visualize thesedata in a real time 3D environment, the Skyline Terra Builderand Explorer Pro software packages were chosen due to their capabilitiesof integration of different layers with different resolutions. A second important feature of the used software is the option to enhancethe spatial content by further elements, such as still and dynamic 2D and 3D objects, QuicktimeTM-panoramas and -movies, labels andflight paths, by means of an integrated scene description language. In our case, these options were used to add results from GIS-basedanalyses applied to the geoglyphs in Palpa, e.g. visibilitystudies, and to verify them inside the 3D environment, International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII-5/W1, ISSN:1682-1750, ISSN:2194-9034, ISSN:1682-1777

The 3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures (3D-Arch) project started in 2005 and is now completed. It proposes an integrated approach based upon a combination of different 3D measurement techniques for the virtual reconstruction of complex architectures like those found in medieval castles. This paper summarizes the work done in this project, consolidates incremental work published earlier, and details the latest developments and results. Since no established procedure has been available to model and visualize this type of architectures, the project resulted in several new contributions: an effective workflow for castle 3D modelling, increasing the level of automation, the seamless integration of models created independently from different data sets, integration of 3D models and GIS data, and developing useful visualization tools. We tested the approach on various castles in Northern Italy and the results demonstrated that it is effective, accurate and creates complete and highly detailed models suitable for many purposes such as documentation to track changes for future restoration, education, and tourism., International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII (5/W1), ISSN:1682-1750, ISSN:2194-9034, ISSN:1682-1777

In this paper we present a system for three-dimensional reconstruction of architectural scenes from uncalibrated videos. These videosmight be recorded using hand-held cameras, downloaded from the internet or taken from archival sources. Because we do not requireprior knowledge of the camera’s internal parameters such as focal length, center of projection, and radial distortion we can deal withvideos from uncontrolled sources. We present fast algorithms for 2D feature tracking on the GPU, real-time robust estimation andbundle adjustment. We also demonstrate a new type of feature, the viewpoint invariant patch (VIP), in its application to loop detectionand closing., International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII (5/W1), ISSN:1682-1750, ISSN:2194-9034, ISSN:1682-1777