Reiner GÖLDNER
(Archaeological Heritage Office of Saxony, Germany)
Abstract: The surveying department of Saxony ordered the creation of high resolution DEM data. The airborne laser scans of about 18 415 km² will be finished in 2011. ATKIS-DGM2, a set of interpolated data with 2m-grid and an accuracy of +/- 0,2 m consists of over 4.6 billion (10^9) points within about 5200 files. This treasure shall be provided for daily archaeological use. But archaeologists don’t use original DEM data, they expect a visualized presentation like hillshades or 3D-views. The raw data has to be prepared.
While the methods are clear in theory, there are some challenges in processing large amounts of 3D-data in practice. The experiences using ESRI ArcGIS 10 software with 3D Extension are shown. Based on a description of the solution with ArcGIS Model Builder, problems and chances of the used tools are illustrated.
Results of the project are hillshades of all available DGM2 data, presented as WMS-application combined with topographic and archaeological data. A further result is a terrain-model that supports the generation of TIN and 3D-views of dedicated and limited regions.
The focus of the project was rather an efficient handling of mass data then a scientific innovation. The method supports the practice of heritage protection not only for a small project region but state wide for the entire region of Saxony.
Keywords: archaeological base data, remote sensing, digital elevation model, heritage protection