Development of a laser-scanning device for the survey of wide submerged archaeological areas

Barbara Davidde Petriaggi, Gabriele Gomez de Ayala

Abstract

The need of documentation of wide archaeological submerged areas has been a stimulus for the development and implementation of a threedimensional scanning system providing accurate information about the dimensional data and chromatic values of the artefacts. The paper presents the work carried out on the underwater site of the “Villa con ingresso a protiro” in the Baiae Marine Protected Area, Underwater Park (Naples), in the frame of the ISCR “Restoring Underwater” Project, funded by MIBACT. Its extension is more than 10,000 square meters and the site lies at an average depth of 4 meters. The scanning systems currently in use offer excellent results, but in a large-scale context such as the “Villa con ingresso a protiro” they prove difficult to use. The low depth and poor visibility of the site make the photo-based systems (ortho-photo-mosaic) almost useless, since they would require many thousands of pictures, in bad light conditions; laser-scanning systems, on the other hand, are linked to a fixed position on the seabed and work properly on small surfaces. The development of a mixed system based on the triangulation measurements of the laser scanner and the optical structured light scanner has thus been a must. It is free of constraints, such as the seabed fixed position, and can be moved along the whole area and close to the desired target in order to obtain further accuracy and more detailed surveys.

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IMEKO-TC19-METROSEA-2017-15.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC19 - Environmental Measurements

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