2nd ISPRS International Workshop 3D-Arch 2007. "Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures" ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 12-13 July 2007

by Francesca Voltolini, FBK-IRST, Trento, Italy, www.itc.it

Digital documentation of monuments and architectures is an important research topic that needs different sciences and technologies to reach good results. For this reason it is important to collaborate and exchange information between scientists coming from different fields.

The second 3D-Arch Workshop on Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures was a chance to exchange experiences between scientists coming from photogrammetry, computer vision, computer graphics and archaeology fields.

The workshop was held in ETH Zurich on 12 and 13 July 2007. It was organized by the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Zurich (Switzerland), FBK - IRST Trento (Italy) and the National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa, Canada). It was a jointly workshop of the ISPRS WG V/4 ('Virtual Reality and Computer Animation') and the ISPRS WG V/2 ('Cultural Heritage Documentation'). The organizing committee included Fabio Remondino, Sabry El-Hakim, Lorenzo Gonzo, Jan Boehm, Pierre Grussenmeyer and Klaus Hanke. An international scientific committee of 22 people reviewed all the submitted abstracts.

The main focus of the workshop was the process of creating virtual environments from multiple data source, in particular images and laser scanner data. Many topics were discussed including image-based 3D modeling of complex sites and architectures, laser scanning of large and complex objects, data registration and integration, automated modeling techniques for complex sites and architectures, accuracy requirement and assessment for 3D reconstruction, visualization issues for large and complex sites and applications in cultural heritage field.
The invited paper "Visualizing and analyzing large and detailed 3D datasets" by L. Borgeat from NRC Canada opened the conference. This document explained "Atelier 3D" a framework consisting of tools developed to model, visualize and analyze large 3D datasets built from 2D and 3D sensor data. As representative example, the scanning of the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre Museum was presented.
The second invited paper "The 'Truthlikeness' of virtual reality reconstructions of architectural heritage: concepts and metadata" by C. Ogleby from Melbourne University opened the Cultural Heritage Documentation session. This paper copes with the problem of "thruthlikeness" in the documentation and visualization of heritage monuments and proposes a possible metadata approach for the qualification and quantification of veracity.
The subjects of the first day were problems and trends in the 3D modeling and visualization, the use of terrestrial laser scanner for heritage documentation, the integration between different surveying techniques and the issues related to visualization and virtual reality. The presentations of the second day were instead focused on the integration between 3D virtual environments and information systems in the cultural heritage field, the 3D modeling of complex object and new developments in 3D modeling algorithms.

32 papers and 6 posters were presented at the workshop and many interesting demos spacing from laser scanners to 3D modeling and visualization software were shown on the last day.
68 participants attended the workshop that was organized jointly with the 8th Conference on Optical 3-D Measurement Techniques in order to facilitate the researchers meeting and discussions.

The proceedings of the workshop are published in the International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (ISSN 1682-1777, Vol. XXXVI, part 5/W47) and are available online.

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