Alessia D’ANGELO | Luca GUGLIERMETTI | Oliviero ELETTI | Barbara De LIETO | Franco GUGLIERMETTI | Luciano RICCIARDI
(La Sapienza, Rome, Italy)

Keywords: Cultural heritage, crowdsourcing, photogrammetry, 3D model, visualization

Abstract:
In recent years new ways to visualize cultural heritage has born; the use of ICT permits to enrich the contents of museums, archeological sites and historical places with 3D reconstructions, virtual tours and AR/VR contents. However, today only few cultural assets have an accurate 3D model with an informative layer. The costs related to the creation of virtual content are high and they are addressed only for the most iconic or important monuments of a site. In this work the use of crowdsourcing (as employees or interested tourists) as manpower to create 3D models is discussed. Photos taken by users can be elaborated automatically with photogrammetric techniques to create models almost at no-costs. The main alternative to photogrammetric technique is the standard relief and laser scan, both methods are costly and necessitate of specialized personnel. Moreover, using photos taken at different time is possible to visualize any change in shape or color potentially connected to degradation or damages. With the help of site’s staff also many difficult to access or no-access area can be reconstructed to be showed to the public, increasing the offering of archaeological sites or to show the artworks stored in warehouses. To validate the results a chromatic and dimensional evaluation study were made, to ensure compliance with the accuracy and reliability necessary for a good fruition. At least, it was studied the possibility to implement direclty the 3D models in a virtual reality environment to increase the diffusion, usability and immersion as well as allowing the addition of multimedia and interactive contents. The site analyzed were the archeological park of the Colosseum and ancient harbor of Ostia in Rome.

Relevance for the conference: The research proposes an innovative and almost costless approach to improve cultural assets visualization by the employ of crowdsources, the 3D model obtained can be used to make a track-change or to create a VR environment.
Relevance for the session: The idea is to create a new Visual Experience of the Past, the 3D model, obtained by crowdsourcing, can be used to make a track-change study or to create a VR environment.
Innovation: Using photogrammetry and crowdsourcing is possible to produce, almost at no-cost and in real time, 3D models sufficiently accurate to be used not only for the enhancement, reconstruction and monitoring in cultural heritage, but also for BIM design and environmental issues.
References:
• S. Al-kheder, Y. Al-shawabkeh, N. Haala,”Developing a documentation system for desert palaces in Jordan using 3D laser scanning and digital photogrammetry”, Journal of Archaeological Science, 2009, Volume 36, pp. 537-546.
• G. Bitelli et al., “From the photographic survey to virtual reality movies and web integration for the study of an archeological site,” in Proc. 2nd Int. Cong. on Science and Technology for the Safeguard of cultural Heritage in Mediterranean Basin, Paris, France, 2000, pp. 149-151.