Abstract
Innovative methodologies of photoscanning and photogrammetry in the Egyptian Cultural Heritage: from the hieroglyphs to the archaeological areas.
Dr. Andrea Angelini
National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage (CNR - ITABC)
In recent years the development of innovative surveying techniques, such as laser scanner but above all digital photogrammetric systems, has allowed to define a very accurate working protocol of data acquisition and restitution in the archaeological/architectural disciplines. By using the technical and manufacturing characteristics of the optical devices (optic lens and reflex cameras) and the related management software, the 3D photogrammetric systems (stereoscopic and multi-imaging) are able to generate numerical models (3D point clouds) characterized by homogeneous, reliable and accurate data, with associated colorimetric values. Usually defined as digital photogrammetry, actually it has to be considered as a photo-scanning of the reality (or virtual laser scanning). Conveniently elaborated, numerical models are transformed in digital models that can be interpreted and usable in different cognitive layers and that are considered the base model of graphics documentation of the architectonical/archaeological organism.
The report starts with some historical information about the use of the photogrammetry for the safeguard of the Abu Simbel temples in Egypt, on the occasion of the construction of the dike of Assuan in the middle of XX century. Aim of the present intervention is to analyze, in incisive way, the photogrammetric system actually used, in order to understand the potentialities and the limits connected. Through the automatism and the simplification of the hardware technology and the software algorithms processes (i.e. SIFT, SURF), photogrammetric systems are more accurate and simple to use but at the same time the risk is that we are losing and underestimating the control of the geometrical rudiments of the method.
However the manageability of the devices together with the development of the digital computing has allowed to expand the range of the digital photogrammetry in Cultural Heritage. In the report are presented some examples related to the Egyptian Cultural Heritage (and not only), from the hieroglyphics application up to monumental scale and archaeological areas. Thank to the development of the drones (quadcopter or UAV systems), light and easy to use, actually the technology is able to combine military know-how with the latest photogrammetric algorithms expanding to the territorial field this incredible instruments of research and knowledge.
