Digitally modeling, visualizing and preserving archaeological sites

• Published in: Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries p. 389
• Main Authors: Allen, Peter K., Feiner, Steve, Meskell, Lynn, Ross, Ken, Troccoli, Alejandro J., Benko, Hrvoje, Ishak, Edward, Smith, Benjamin, Conlon, James
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY, USA ACM 07.06.2004; IEEE
• Series: ACM Conferences
• Subjects: Applied computing > Document management and text processing > Document capture > Document scanning; Applied computing > Document management and text processing > Document capture > Graphics recognition and interpretation; Augmented reality; Computer graphics; Computer science; Computing methodologies > Computer graphics > Graphics systems and interfaces > Virtual reality; Computing methodologies > Computer graphics > Image manipulation; Cultural differences; Displays; Image reconstruction; Photometry; Software libraries; Solid modeling; Visualization; archaeology; augmented reality; digital libraries; cultural heritage; multimodal interaction; 3D scanning
• ISBN: 1581138326; 9781581138320
• DOI: 10.1145/996350.996455

Preserving cultural heritage and historic sites is an important problem. These sites are subject to erosion and vandalism, and, as long-lived artifacts, they have gone through many phases of construction, damage and repair. We believe that it is important to use 3D model building technology to create an accurate record of these sites, so preservationists can track changes and foresee structural problems. From a digital libraries perspective, 3D models also allow a much wider audience to "virtually" see and tour these sites. We have developed a suite of new methods that can reduce the time to build a model through automation. Our methods utilize range image segmentation and feature extraction algorithms. Once the 3D model is constructed, it is necessary to texture map it with imagery to create a geometrically and photometrically correct model. We are developing a 3D visualization environment to aid archaeologists in their post-excavation interpretation and analysis.