SENSOR FUSION FOR 3D ARCHAEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTATION AND RECONSTRUCTION: CASE STUDY OF “CUEVA PINTADA” IN GALDAR, GRAN CANARIA

Abstract. 3D documentation and reconstruction are decisive when inspecting archaeological sites without any direct contact or when monitoring the changes they have suffered over time are required. In addition, there is a great commitment with the preservation of heritage as well as with the awareness and dissemination of these historical sites. In this sense, this paper presents a visualization system with metric properties that will serve to manage and disseminate the archaeological site under study. Specifically, two techniques were used in an integrated way for the data acquisition: laser scanning and close-range photogrammetry. Both techniques come together in perfect marriage as remote data acquisition techniques to generate high quality 3D spatial products of this type of scenarios. A combined acquisition methodology is proposed in which the design of a network using reference spheres and targets is the key to link data from both technologies. This paper will describe the proposed methodology and the results obtained in the archaeological site of Cueva Pintada in Gran Canaria (Spain) which has an area of around 5400 m². As final products: (i) a laser model of ± 1.68 mm accuracy and 5 mm resolution, (ii) a photorealistic photogrammetric model of ± 8.4 mm accuracy and 1.47 mm of spatial resolution thanks to a specific pole developed for this purpose and (iii) a virtual tour with metric properties of the whole archaeological site were obtained.