Integrated use of unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning to support archaeological analysis: The Acropolis of Selinunte case (Sicily, Italy)

Abstract

Southwestern Sicily is an area of infrequent seismic activity; however, some studies carried out in the archaeological Selinunte site suggest that, between the fourth century BC and the early Middle Ages, probably at least two earthquakes strucked this area with enough energy to damage and cause the collapse and kinematics of much of the architecture of Selinunte. Take into account that, in 2008, a noninvasive archaeological prospection and traditional data gathering methods along the Acropolis north fortifications were carried out. Following these first studies, after about 10 years, a new geophysical campaign was carried out. This second campaign benefited from the application of modern technologies for the acquisition and processing of the point cloud data on the northern part of the Acropolis, like terrestrial laser scanning and unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry. In this paper, we present the application of these techniques and a strategy for their integration for the 3D modelling of buildings and cultural heritages. We show how the integration of data acquired independently by these two techniques is an added value able to overcome the intrinsic limits of the individual techniques. The application to Selinunte's Acropolis allowed it to highlight and measure with high accuracy fractures, dislocation, inclinations of walls, depressions of some areas and other interesting observations, which may be important starting points for future investigations.

Seismic behaviour and 3D reconstruction of Cultural Heritage: the Column of the Hera Lacinia Temple in Capo Colonna (Calabria, Southern Italy)

“…The terrestrial laser scanning survey was performed using a Z+F Imager® 5010c laser scanner, using a measurement resolution of 3.2 mm to the distance of 10 m between receiver and target (cf. [9]). In addition, the embedded high dynamic range (HDR) camera was used to generate panoramic pictures characterized by high resolution for the colorization of the point clouds.…”

Close-Range Sensing and Data Fusion for Built Heritage Inspection and Monitoring—A Review

“…Fusion approaches introduced for multisource point cloud (3D-to-3D) registration (and successively coloring) are: manual annotation of common features [251], iterative closest point (ICP) [252,253], feature-based [254], and georeferencing-based [35]. The rapid increase in the implementation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for cultural heritage IBM has recently introduced fascinating integrative approaches, on the convergence of TLS and low-altitude aerial photogrammetry [255][256][257][258][259] (see Section 4.1).…”

Joint Investigation with Ground Penetrating Radar and Infrared Thermography as a Diagnostic Support for the Restoration of Two Wall Mosaics in the Church of St. Mary of the Admiral in Palermo, Italy

“…In fact, these techniques allow the increase of knowledge of the transformations that may have affected historical structures over the centuries, thus supporting and guiding restoration projects [24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. To minimize interpretative ambiguities, the joint use of different noninvasive techniques has often been proposed such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and infrared thermography (IRT) [31], unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry and TLS [32], UAV photogrammetry and GPR [33], GPR, and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) [34,35], GPR, IRT, and ERT [36].…”