3D Modeling of Buildings: Outstanding Sites

Introduction

Traditional topographic databases, usually created from aerial or satellite imagery, provide a simplified three-dimensional (3D) model of our urban environment which can be used for a number of applications, such as town planning, risk prevention and mobility management. However, in the case of representing and analyzing outstanding sites like monuments, works of art or archeological sites, these databases are insufficient and other ways of acquiring and processing data need to be employed. This book presents a state-of-the-art of the methods specifically adapted to outstanding sites and the research currently being carried out in this area. The methods addressed in this text range from lasergrammetry to current dense correlation techniques using images as well as traditional photogrammetry.

These methods allow for the surveying of outstanding sites, permitting the restitution of the structures’ form and appearance with a precision and a level of detail agreed upon in advance in a set of building specifications. They are due to takeover from techniques traditionally used for the creation of topographic databases, in the case of specific orders, such as the description of the relief of the façade and the complete 3D survey (interior and exterior) of a monument. In this text, digitization mainly involves 3D geometric rendering, and does not include the inventory, analysis of the construction materials, structural analysis of the building or its history.

First, it is ...