Digitisation of cultural heritage

Author: Benjamin Federmann, December 2016

The project Digitally Monument Found (DMF) was brought to life in 2012 by the Operational Programme Information Society (OPIS). The ambition of the project was to digitise selected national cultural monuments and historical objects of the Slovak Republic. These detailed restorations would preserve these monuments for further generations.

From 2012 to 2015, 1,455 architectural cultural monuments were completely digitised. Monuments included:

• Castles
• Churches
• Cloisters
• Monuments
• Castle ruins
• Historical town districts.

Various digitisation measurement technologies were used:

• Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)
• Digital photogrammetry (DP)
• Aerial photos from helicopters and UAVs
• Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).

The results of the digitisation of the cultural monuments are:

• Textured 3D models
• Point clouds
• Gigapixel panoramas
• Technical drawings with accuracy up to 1 centimetre

To achieve the ambitious goals of the project in the planned time, the OPIS assumed commercial partnerships with external partners. One of the leading partners, decisively in the success of the project, was STUDIO 727, which started working on the DMF project in 2013.

During the two-year project term, STUDIO 727 digitised 81 big monuments for the overall project. With the digitisation of the monuments, STUDIO 727 used a combined workflow from TLS and DP.

“Using both TLS and DP, we were able to capture millions of detailed points along with thousands of accurate photos,” said STUDIO 727 Director Ladislav Dedik. “We were able to obtain really nice results."

Story: Digitisation of cultural heritage
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Merging sensors for the best results
Chapter 3: Flying high for detail
Chapter 4: Processing for precision