Laserscanning of Roman walls in Vindobona

Michaela KRONBERGER¹ / Martin MOSSER² / Michael PREGESBAUER³

(¹Museen der Stadt Wien, Vienna, Austria / ²Stadtarchäologie Wien, Vienna, Austria / ³Niederösterreichische Landesregierung, St. Pölten, Austria)

Outline: Better preserved Roman walls in Vienna were recorded by Laserscan the first time and faced with the results of the digital recording of a total station.

As a new tool of archaeological recording Stadtarchäologie Wien and Wien Museum, in cooperation with the government of Lower Austria – department of Surveying and Geoinformation, made first attempts of Laserscanning in spring and summer 2009. Objects of data acquisition had been the stone and mortar built foundations of late Roman buildings along the western fortification wall of the legionary fortress of Vindobona (Roman Vienna). Second scanning was carried out at the walls and ground floors of the tribune houses of the same fortress excavated and preserved already from 1949 to 1961. All these objects were also digitally recorded by a total station (Tachy CAD). So there exist two features to compare in exactness, in duration and costs of recording. The most important results by using Laserscan were the following: It is making sense for the use of public and scientific presentations and for recording complex structures as different stone or brick layers of walls and pavements. Laserscanning is making less sense for documenting the outlines of thousands of layers of an excavation, which you can much easier survey by an AutoCAD supported total station system.

Keywords: Legionary fortress, Laserscanning, digital recording