Documentation of Complex Environments Using 360° Cameras. The Santa Marta Belltower in Montanaro

Lorenzo Teppati Losè,Fabio Giulio Tonolo,Filiberto Chiabrando

doi:10.3390/rs13183633

Lorenzo Teppati Losè, Fabio Giulio Tonolo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13183633

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Journal: Remote sensing	Publication Date: Sep 11, 2021
Citations: 11	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Polytechnic University of Turin

Abstract

Low-cost and fast surveying approaches are increasingly being deployed in several domains, including in the field of built heritage documentation. In parallel with mobile mapping systems, uncrewed aerial systems, and simultaneous location and mapping systems, 360° cameras and spherical photogrammetry are research topics attracting significant interest for this kind of application. Although several instruments and techniques can be considered to be consolidated approaches in the documentation processes, the research presented in this manuscript is focused on a series of tests and analyses using 360° cameras for the 3D metric documentation of a complex environment, applied to the case study of a XVIII century belltower in Piemonte region (north-west Italy). Both data acquisition and data processing phases were thoroughly investigated and several processing strategies were planned, carried out, and evaluated. Data derived from consolidated 3D mapping approaches were used as a ground reference to validate the results derived from the spherical photogrammetry approach. The outcomes of this research confirmed, under specific conditions and with a proper setup, the possibility of using 360° images in a Structure from Motion pipeline to meet the expected accuracies of typical architectural large-scale drawings.

Highlights

The documentation of built heritage and, in general, of cultural heritage, is a complex process that poses a series of issues and that has specific rules and requirements [1,2,3]
This paper focuses on the experience of documenting a complex architectural heritage asset, exploiting experimental approaches together with more consolidated practices, i.e., traditional topographic techniques, terrestrial laser scanner (TLS), uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), 360◦ cameras, and spherical photogrammetry (SP), and a handheld scanner based on simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms
Parameters spherical datasets was carefully analyzed and validated under different perspectives, of the adopted cameras. This choice was based on the experience gained in and previous detailed considerations are reported. Both a qualitative research works [55,56] and because it was consistent with the aim of the fast-surveying analysis of the completeness in the reconstruction of the overall belltower and a quantitaapproach of this research

Summary

Introduction

The documentation of built heritage and, in general, of cultural heritage, is a complex process that poses a series of issues and that has specific rules and requirements [1,2,3]. Each heritage asset has its own specific features and, depending on its state of conservation and the knowledge process status, the documentation project is characterized by a tailored structure and organization. The documentation of a heritage asset is, or at least should always be, the first phase of the knowledge process, and it is crucial to take into account several aspects that contribute and influence its survey. Time and cost are two other factors that highly influence the design of a documentation project ( in the built heritage field). Resources and time available both in the field and in the post-processing, analysis, and interpretation phases have a significant impact on the overall design of the heritage documentation [6]

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