<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The recent seismic swarms, occurred in Italy since August 2016, outlined the importance of deepen Geomatics researches for the validation of new strategies aimed at rapid-mapping and documenting differently accessible and complex environments, as in urban contexts and damaged built heritage. In the emergency response, the crucial exploitation of technological advances should obtain and efficiently organize high-scale reliable geospatial data for the early warning, impact, and recovery phases. Fulfilling these issues, among others, the Copernicus EMS, has played by now an important role in immediate and extensive damage reconnaissance, as in the case of Centre Italy. Nevertheless, the use of remote sensing data is still affected by a problem of point-of-view, scale and detectable detail. Nadir images, airborne or satellite, in fact, strongly limited the confidence level of these products. The subjectivity of the operator involvement is still an open issue, both in the first fieldwork assessment, and in the following operational approach of interpretative damage detection and rapid mapping production. To overcome these limits, the introduction of UAV platforms for photogrammetric purposes, has proven to be a sustainable approach in terms of time savings, operators’ safety, reliability and accuracy of results: the nadir and oblique integration can provide large multiscale models, with the fundamental information related to the façades conditions. The presented research, conducted within the Central Italy earthquakes events, will focus on potentialities and limits of UAV photogrammetry in the two documented sites: Pescara del Tronto and Accumoli. Here, the aim is not limited to describe a series of strategies for georeferencing, blocks orientation and multitemporal co-registration solutions, but also to validate the implemented pipelines as a workflow that could be integrated in the operative intervention for emergency response in early impact activities. Thus, it would be possible to use this 3D metric products as a reference-data for significative improvements of reliability in typical visual inspection and mapping, flanking the traditional nadir airborne- or satellite-based products. The UAV acquisitions performed in two damaged villages are displayed, in order to underline the implication of the spatial information embedded in DSM reconstruction and 3D models, supporting more reliable damage assessments.</p>

One of the last and more pressing requests to the researchers working in the field of Geomatics is to research, validate, and propose new strategies for the rapid mapping of different contexts, with low-cost solutions. The continuous implementation of image-matching algorithms and their use in structure from motion (SfM) software allow using new sensors and implementing new strategies for the production of 3D models starting from an image-based approach. In the last years, another central issue for the researchers has been related with the documentation of cultural heritage (CH) artifacts using different sensors and techniques. In the experience presented in this paper, the attention was focused on these two central aspects: a test of a commercial off-theshelf (COTS) steadicamera for the rapid 3D documentation of two cultural heritage artifacts was proposed. The two sites chosen to evaluate this mass market sensor were as follows: the Basilica of San Nicola (Tolentino, MC, Marche Region, Central Italy) and the Castello del Valentino (Torino, TO, Piedmont Region, North Italy). The metric products obtained with the Steadicam were compared with more consolidated techniques such as close-range photogrammetry (CRP) and terrestrial laser scanner (TLS). The products derived from the different techniques were then evaluated and compared, and an overall assess of the use of this new solution was made.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The market of imaging and non-imaging sensors offers nowadays a wide range of products, which are constantly improving and growing. Given the recent advances in the miniaturization of devices for metric survey, and the relatively cheap COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) solutions widely available, it is therefore crucial to optimally exploit, calibrate and evaluate the performance for 3D data acquisition of the new available devices. These issues are part of the latest research addresses of different Geomatics groups, with the aim to analyze and evaluate these new sensors, in order to discover their real potentialities which are not only connected to their interesting design, low price and small dimensions.</p><p>According to the final objective of the research, which is the realization of 3D metric survey of a Cultural Heritage site using different techniques and methods, one small UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and a portable TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanner) have been employed. The acquisition strategies and the processing methods are discussed, and the quality of the achievable results is analysed, together with an evaluation of the sensors and the outline of the best practices and use cases scenarios.</p>

Thanks to the wide diffusion of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), geomatics solutions have actively contributed to the field of safety enhancement and disaster risk reduction, supporting rapid mapping and documentation activities of the damages that have occurred to heritage buildings after natural disasters (such as earthquakes) where, in this scenario it is even more important to plan and execute disaster assessment and response operations in safe conditions. In fact, the planning and execution of technical countermeasures in a seismic emergency response involve higher risks for the safety of the operators as compared with responses related to the activities performed at non-critical construction sites. After an analysis of the state of the art, this study aims to underline the possibilities offered by the use of UAVs for performing safety-related tasks, both at post-disaster and non-critical construction sites. First, a survey has been conducted concerning the main user expectations and characteristics that an ideal UAV platform should have in order to perform safety-related tasks at construction sites that are created following the initial emergency phases. The answers that were obtained have been compared with similar studies retrieved from the literature validating previously conducted research. The legislative context is also considered, as it is an important factor that influences the applicability of these platforms and technology. Along with a method for assessing and mitigating the intrinsic risk of using an UAV, the results of a survey submitted to experts in the field of safety at construction sites is also discussed, intending to identify requirements of the ideal platform and the related user expectations. The results are reported, together with a summary of considerations on the use of these strategies in the analyzed contexts.

Recent results within the framework of the collaborative project The Complete Geophysical Survey of the Valley of the Kings (VOK) (Luxor, Egypt) are reported in this article. In October 2018, a team of geomatics and geophysics researchers coordinated by the Polytechnic University of Turin worked side by side in the VOK. Topographic measurements in support of geophysical surveys and the achievement of a very large-scale 3D map of the Eastern VOK were the two main objectives of the geomatics campaign. Innovative 3D metric technologies and methods, based on terrestrial laser scanning (both static and mobile) and close-range photogrammetry were employed by the Geomatics team. The geophysical campaign focused on the acquisition of Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and high spatial density Geomagnetic (GM) data. ERT new data around KV62, both inverted in 2D sections and added to the previous ones to perform a new global 3D inversion, confirm the previous results showing both conductive and resistive anomalies that have to be explained. GPR timeslices showed some interesting features in the area in front of the KV2 entrance where GM gradient map also presents localized anomalies. In the area SSW of the KV2 the GM gradient maps evidenced also a large semicircular anomaly which, up to now, has no explanation. The potentialities of using magnetic techniques as a complement to other non-invasive techniques in the search for structures of archeological significance have been explored. The application of modern and innovative methods of 3D metric survey enabled to achieve a complete 3D mapping of what is currently visible in the valley. The integration of 2D/3D mapping data concerning visible elements and hypothetical anomalies, together with the recovering in the same global reference system of underground documentation pertaining to the Theban Mapping Project, prefigure the enhancement of multi-temporal site representation. This strategy enables the fruition development of the already discovered archaeological heritage, using modern criteria of valorization and conservation.