Underwater Videogrammetry with Adaptive Feature Detection at "See am Mondsee", Austria

Abstract

We present a complete, video-based 3d documentation process for the submerged remains of Neolithic pile dwellings at the UNESCO World Heritage Site "See am Mondsee" in Austria. We discuss good practice routines and solutions, such as cable management, supporting the Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) when strong currents are prevalent, and documentation/record keeping. The recorded site is a Neolithic lake village dating to the 4th millenium BC. Based on initial reconstruction results, we improved the image matching process of our Structure from Motion (SfM) pipeline (built around the free end-user application VisualSFM), by replacing its default feature detector (SiftGPU) with our own implementation of adaptive feature detection. The campaign was accompanied by a German television film crew. Their documentary was shown on the German public television (ARD) broadcast "W wie Wissen".