A 3D GIS Infrastructure for “Mapping the Via Appia”.

The use of 3D technologies in archaeology and architectural history has grown enormously. Nowadays, 3D technologies are used to record, present, analyse and reconstruct archaeological sites. Since the used tools mostly originate from other domains, the developments are characterised as technology-driven rather than methodology-driven. The recent trend of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and the technological improvements of digital infrastructures are changing this. This article presents the development of a 3D Spatial Data Infrastructure (3D SDI) that allows archaeology and historical architecture researchers to analyse complex sites. For the development of the 3D SDI, IT literacy levels of the users, reusability of the tooling and the advantages of using FOSS are taken into account. The 3D SDI was developed for Mapping the Via Appia. An interdisciplinary team of archaeology experts and engineers have developed tailor-made 3D solutions to enhance the analysis and exploration of the Via Appia

Using modular 3D digital earth applications based on point clouds for the study of complex sites

Contains fulltext : 162133pub.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)This article discusses the use of 3D technologies in digital earth applications (DEAs) to study complex sites. These are large areas containing objects with heterogeneous shapes and semantic information. The study proposes that DEAs should be modular, have multi-tier architectures, and be developed as Free and Open Source Software if possible. In DEAs requiring high reliability in the 3D measurements, point clouds are proposed as basis for the 3D Digital digital earth representation. For the development of DEAs, we propose to follow a workflow with four components: data acquisition and processing, data management, data analysis and data visualization. For every component, technological challenges of using 3D technologies are identified and solutions applied for a case study are presented. The case study is a modular 3D DEA developed for the archaeological project Mapping the Via Appia. The 3D DEA allows archaeologists to virtually analyze a complex study area.12 december 201618 p