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. This is a significant improvement over static imagery
or video, in that immersive viewing is possible, and we can
create new and novel views that could outline the historical and
chronological transformation of a large site.
To test our methods, in July 2003 a team from Columbia University
joined the Stanford University Monte Polizzo Excavation in Sicily, with the
goal of digitally recording an archaeological
excavation. Archaeology is a destructive process
that requires that structures and findings, usually in the form of tools,
pottery and bones, to be removed in order to continue. We had three goals for
this project: to capture the site's current state on a
daily basis using several sensors; to create an integrated
3D site model that would include geometry from laser
range scans, and photometry images and video; and to
record changes as different layers were exposed.
This work was supported by NSF grant IIS-0121239
