Application of Digital Photogrammetry and Autocad to Support of Historical Buildings

This paper describes how we could combine the two most available systems for the purpose of surveying and documenting the architectural heritage, historical buildings and monuments. The two systems are digital photogrammetry (applied in a close-range context) and CAD. The product of this integration is a 3-D GIS application. In this application, close-range photogrammetry is used for the acquisition of terrestrial photographs whereas the CAD system together with some in-house developed computer programmes are used for the manipulation of the captured spatial data. The economics of the proposed integrated system inevitably encourage the architectural organisations to use this type of mapping system for mapping activities. The user is able to perform the whole reconstruction of the 3-D objects without manual measurements. In this method of reconstruction, the redesign costs are less and, with more knowledge available, any required refurbishment is more accurate. The automatic data transfer of the photogrammetrically generated digital surface model of the CAD system gives a flexible 3-D geometric object description. For example, in the case of fire or other damage-taking place on cultural buildings, sometimes only small or partial examples of pattern detail remain. By combining photogrammetry and CAD, this detail can be recorded and repeated to reproduce the original design. Finally, this paper will present some potential applications of the proposed integrated system and present some case studies where photogrammetry is providing an important and successful tool to assist in the documentation, investigation and maintenance of cultural monuments. Key-Words: Photogrammetry-Architectural-Archaeological-Historical-Cultural-CAD-GIS WSEAS International Conference on ENGINEERING MECHANICS, STRUCTURES, ENGINEERING GEOLOGY (EMESEG '08), Heraklion, Crete Island, Greece, July 22-24, 2008 ISBN: 978-960-6766-88-6 151 ISSN 1790-2769