Abstract
Abstract. The driving forces behind the rapid development of accessible 3d modelling acquisition are generally economic. As the requirements for on-site data acquisition technology become cheaper and more user friendly, opportunities for the geographic dislocation of expertise become more viable. In effect, much of the diagnosis of a monuments’ morphology or condition can be made remotely, as a virtual model is constructed. This potential portability serves to reduce the impact, invasiveness and cost of survey and documentation processes. In cases of contested heritage conservation practices, the simple act of photographic recording can cause concern. However, photogrammetric recording is eminently advantageous for its capacity to provide non-destructive means to consider degradation and condition mapping as well as to record and monitor change over time. Here, two rapid surveys taken with portable 360° cameras a year apart, demonstrate the potential value and limitations of deploying recent techniques in order to deliver credible or useful survey data in a highly complex pillared hall that is intensively occupied.
Highlights
This paper relates a sequence of attempts made to develop a practical and workable methodology for the digital documentation of a living heritage site that is both geometrically complex and intensively occupied
Using case studies of two geometrically complex historic interiors in Tamil Nadu with ritual roles, the relative merits of 3d acquisition methods and their representation to serve a range of challenges are examined
There is a crisis of heritage authority: technical, cultural and political in Tamil Nadu, where mass rapid urbanisation has risked swamping the physical dominance of its temple architecture, authority for conservation practices is contested between religious, political and local stakeholders
Summary
This paper relates a sequence of attempts made to develop a practical and workable methodology for the digital documentation of a living heritage site that is both geometrically complex and intensively occupied. It touches upon the emergent challenges and inherent controversies that relate to the role of digital documentation and the role of such data in the framing and interpretation of subsequent heritage governance. One is a relatively uninhabited managed heritage temple site and the other an intensively populated hall Both are densely pillared and inherently challenging to survey using conventional laser scanning. The issue of lower cost increases capacity for user generated workflows such as that developed by Rahaman et al (2019)
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