The documentation of ecclesiastical cultural heritage sites in Cyprus

Abstract

Innovative digital applications are invaluable for the documentation and conservation of cultural heritage monuments. Digital techniques can provide data on cultural heritage sites to enhance understanding of their changes over time. Due to the age and conditions of cultural heritage monuments in Cyprus, especially churches, there is a great demand to develop a methodology that is capable of digitizing both the internal and external church using a variety of non-invasive techniques as a means of storing and managing documentation data and metadata for providing comprehensive culturally digital and documentation evidence. In this paper, the integration of various technologies was used to document the 12 th century St. Efstathios Chapel in Kolossi, Cyprus. The methodologies included data acquired by close-range images from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and hand-held cameras, coordinates from ground control points using Total Stations etc., to document both the internal and external facades and relics of selected religious monuments. Thousands of images from the monument were taken using a UAV with a high-resolution camera. The images were processed using photogrammetry to provide a digital model of the church. The use of the HSV color model was used to examine potential anomalies in the structure. The combination of the technologies will provide a 3D model to document and identify ecclesiastical cultural heritage sites, which can be incorporated into a dynamic database and valuable resource to better understand the cultural heritage monument. In this way, the end-users will be able to access the information from the digital platform at any time.

Analysis of Documentation Opportunities of Cultural Heritage Samples With Terrestrial Photogrametry Methods

“…), not able to take enough photographs for construction 3D model. Thus, to eliminate these problems and construct a complete 3D model for the cultural heritage objects, studies integrated terrestrial photographs with TLS data (Guarnieri et al 2006, Guarnieri et al 2010, Owda et al 2018 or UAV data (Lo Brutto et al 2018, Lumhann et al 2020, Themistocleous et al 2020 for building a complete and accurate 3D model. All these studies indicated that combining terrestrial photographs with TLS or UAV data improves the model.…”