Computer Vision Tools for 3D Modelling in Archaeology

Abstract

In archaeological Cultural Heritage study 3D modelling has become a very useful process to obtain indispensable data for documentation and visualization. Nowadays the continuous request to achieve photorealistic 3D models has led to testing different techniques and methodologies to speed up both data acquisition and the data processing phase. There are many examples of surveys conducted with the use of range-based and image-based techniques, but, in the last few years, the scientific research has been increasingly moving towards automatic procedures using Computer Vision approach to reduce time during data processing. Computer Vision approach offers a great opportunity for archaeological survey since it can be very easily used by existing Computer Vision interfaces such as 3D web services and open source or low cost software. The aim of this work is to evaluate the performance offered by Computer Vision interfaces for 3D survey of archaeological ruins using some 3D web-service tools and a low cost software like PhotoScan package. Some tests have been performed to analyze the geometric accuracy of 3D models obtained by 3D web-service tools and PhotoScan package through the comparison with a 3D model achieved by laser scanning survey.