Terrestrial Scanning / Archaeology & Cultural Heritage

G. Toubekis, I. Mayer, M. Döring-Williams, K. Maeda, K. Yamauchi, Y. Taniguchi, S. Morimoto, M. Petzet, M. Jarke, M. Jansen: Preservation and Management of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bamiyan 11.02.2011

Laser scan documentation and virtual reconstruction of the destroyed Buddha figures and the archaelogical remains, published at XXII CIPA Symposium, 2009, Kyoto.

The more than 1000m spanning cliff wall at Bamiyan was scanned with a terrestrial laser scan system and a 3D model of the cliff was derived from the measurements. After removing the large fragments from the niche of the Eastern 38 m Buddha a detailed laser scan was conducted and a textured 3D model of the empty niche generated in order to study the damages of the back wall in detail. From historic images and contour line drawings a 3D surface model of the destroyed Buddha figure was created and successfully integrated into the 3D textured model of the scanned niche. The result has been processed for presentation in an immersive 3D Cave Automated Virtual environment - CAVE at the Virtual Reality Center at RWTH Aachen University. The complex real-time stero projection is computed by a high-end computer cluster and adapts the projected image to the spectator eyes and movement by head tracking with infrared devices.