Preventive conservation implies, amongst many other aspects, the characterization of the atmospheric environment around monuments or cultural heritage (CH) items, with the intention to improve the conditions and to contribute to the preservation. We have, over the last two decades, intensively used various forms of X-ray spectrometry and automated electron probe X-ray microanalysis, always toge...

Cultural heritage sites are rare and irreplaceable wealth of human civilization. The majority of them are becoming unstable due to a combination of human and natural disturbances. High-precision, efficient deformation monitoring facilitates the early recognition of potential risks and enables preventive diagnosis of heritage sites. In this study, an advanced Multi-Temporal Interferometric Synth...

The paper describes reading criteria for the documentation for important buildings in Milan, Italy, as a case study of the research on the integration of new technologies to obtain 3D multi-scale representation architectures. In addition, affords an overview of the actual optical 3D measurements sensors and techniques used for surveying, mapping, digital documentation and 3D modeling applicatio...

Extended Abstract Thermal non-destructive testing is more and more applied even in the field of cultural heritage conservation. The main reason is the capability of inspecting large surfaces without any contact or damage. A large number of testing procedures and processing algorithms allows reaching reliable results both in laboratory or in situ. Well established or innovative techniques are ba...

There is increasing interest in creating 3D photo-realistic computer models of monuments or heritage buildings, both indoors and outdoors. Our approach to 3D Reconstruction is to use automated distance measurements together with photographs. Two technologies are used: i) a combined laser digital camera sensor for data acquisition and ii) mobility for resolving spatial occlusions. After a few sc...

Eduardo Rojas is a Senior Urb an Planner with the Inter-American Development Bank, supervising the bank's urban deve lopment portfolio. H e is currently desig ning several urban h eritag e preservation and revitalization loans and technical coop erations. He is task manager f or the Quito Historic Center Rehabilitation Loan granted to Ecuador. His degrees are in architecture, urban planning, an...

Identification of global biodiversity hotspots is a leading conservation priority (Mittermayer et al. (1999) Hotspots. Conservation International, Washington, DC; Stein et al. (2000) Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK), but we know little about the nature and structure of such hotspots. Botanical richness in one recently ident...