Three dimensional imaging of cultural heritage through use of laser scanner technologies as a basis for getting to know cultural assets and bringing out their value

The evolution of information technology has permitted the rapid development and refinement of techniques for surveying solid objects, opening up interesting perspectives for use in various fields (industrial, medical, etc.). During recent years, laser scanners for surveying objects have been introduced, especially to satisfy certain industrial needs. This kind of equipment is able to survey millions of points in a few instants with satisfactory accuracy in various fields of application. The speed with which data are acquired in the field of cultural assets permits the introduction of considerable saving in terms of both money and time on the market for getting to know and safeguarding cultural assets, while ensuring the quality of the results. Research is based on applying terrestrial laser scanner techniques to the three-dimensional surveying of monuments, in order to establish a data bank which can be used according to the needs of various specialists. The technique consists of acquiring metrical data and warped trim by means of a laser ray detection device. The scanning sensor, mounted on a motor powered base, works by recording all the visible architectural points (from the point of scanning) according to a pitch which can be set by the user. The result, in fact, is a cloud of three dimensional points which exactly reproduce the current state of the object being analysed, and allow for later solid modelling. In the field of studies of safeguarding and preserving of cultural heritage, three dimensional images appear to be a very useful tool in view of their many expected applications. They can be a tool for simulating working hypotheses which could justify technical, aesthetic and historical choices; both in the case of restoration work and in the case of studies by architecture historians and archaeologists. They can be an immediate way to display information to a public which is not used to graphical representation of a monument. On the other hand, like plastic models, it is a fundamental teaching tool to highlight the quality of a job, to explain the theoretical principles and the construction techniques typical of a building, to teach its history; and more generally, as a support for history of architecture or to present tourist information at a high level. They can be a “spectacular” tool, often associated with cinema and visual information media in order to show everything which has disappeared: the destroyed or radically restructured parts of a building, the archaeological reconstruction of a site, of a habitat, etc. Finally, they can be a tool for memory, which can associate the shapes of the “synthetized” objects with immediately accessible and complex information: the materials, the dates, the state of preservation, restoration works