3D MODELLING OF A HISTORIC WINDMILL: PPK-AIDED TERRESTRIAL PHOTOGRAMMETRY VS SMARTPHONE APP

Abstract

Abstract. Cultural heritage (CH), what we inherited from the past generations, is a precious asset connecting the past to the present. It has many demonstrable benefits to nations around the world. For many countries, it has been a part of national identity as well as a key driver of the economy. However, CH is under constant threat of demolition due to wars, natural and human-induced hazards, and negligence. Therefore, documentation of CH has become very essential. Recent advancements in remote sensing technology have improved upon approaches for the surveying and structural modelling of the CH. This paper examines two close-range photogrammetry approaches in modelling a historic windmill. In the first approach, to generate a 3D model of the windmill, the images were obtained with a PPK-aided system and then processed through the Structure-from-Motion (SfM) method in Agisoft Metashape software. The second approach utilized a smartphone app both to capture the images and then generate the 3D model of the windmill with SfM. The 3D models of windmills, generated with two different methods, were compared in CloudCompare software using the cloud-to-mesh distance (C2M) tool. Two models were aligned with point pairs-picking for registration and the result showed that the models are quite similar and distance between the two models ranged from −5cm to +5cm.