MAINTENANCE OF STRUCTURAL AND DESIGNS OF HISTORICAL BUILDINGS USING LIGHT DETECTION AND RANGING (LiDAR)

Maintenance of heritage building structures and design was usually based on existing written documentation which was got after excavating. This paper analyses the use of LiDAR for documentation of the buildings for preservation of historical building structures. LiDAR is preferred over other written documentation techniques due to its speed of documentation of the structure and designs of the building. For performing 3 dimensional scanning of images LiDAR is used over other scanning techniques such as infrared or photogrammetry. The reason for using LiDAR is as it provides the highest quality image when compared to all the other existing 3 dimensional scanning techniques. A beam of light is reflected by the target which was illuminated and a sensor records this light to measure. Based on different wavelengths and return times on the historical buildings, this recorded light generates a 3-dimensional representation about the shape and the surface characteristics. A point cloud which is a group of points is collected by the sensors which consist of data in accurate details