Visualizing Archaeological Excavations based on Unity3D

Information

• Publication Type: Bachelor Thesis
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Visualization Group
• Date: July 2014
• First Supervisor:
  • Gerd Hesina
  • Christoph Traxler
  • Eduard Gröller

Abstract

As part of an archaeological excavation huge amounts of different types of data, for example laser scan point-clouds, triangulated surface meshes, pictures or drawings of finds, find attributes like location, age, condition and description or layers of excavated earth are collected. This detailed documentation is important to give archaeologists the possibility to analyze the collected data at a later date since the find spot might not be accessible anymore. Unfortunately all the accumulated data is separately saved and consequently complex to explore.

Therefore we present a novel solution that allows the user to digitally explore a virtual archaeological excavation in real-time. With our approach we can not only visualize different types of textured meshes and finds but allow the user to draw on surfaces to mark areas of certain interest that need further exploration, enable explosion views to investigate composition of different layers of earth and arbitrary slicing of the threedimensional mesh structure to better visualize cross-sections and an easier tracing of accumulation points of finds. The result of this work is a new powerful tool that will support the analysis of future excavations. All results and the implementation itself will be presented as part of this thesis.

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BibTeX

@bachelorsthesis{Trautner_Thomas_2014_VAE,
  title =      "Visualizing Archaeological Excavations based on Unity3D",
  author =     "Thomas Trautner",
  year =       "2014",
  abstract =   "As part of an archaeological excavation huge amounts of
               different types of data, for example laser scan
               point-clouds, triangulated surface meshes, pictures or
               drawings of finds, find attributes like location, age,
               condition and description or layers of excavated earth are
               collected. This detailed documentation is important to give
               archaeologists the possibility to analyze the collected data
               at a later date since the find spot might not be accessible
               anymore. Unfortunately all the accumulated data is
               separately saved and consequently complex to explore. 
               Therefore we present a novel solution that allows the user
               to digitally explore a virtual archaeological excavation in
               real-time. With our approach we can not only visualize
               different types of textured meshes and finds but allow the
               user to draw on surfaces to mark areas of certain interest
               that need further exploration, enable explosion views to
               investigate composition of different layers of earth and
               arbitrary slicing of the threedimensional mesh structure to
               better visualize cross-sections and an easier tracing of
               accumulation points of finds. The result of this work is a
               new powerful tool that will support the analysis of future
               excavations. All results and the implementation itself will
               be presented as part of this thesis.",
  month =      jul,
  address =    "Favoritenstrasse 9-11/E193-02, A-1040 Vienna, Austria",
  school =     "Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms, Vienna
               University of Technology ",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2014/Trautner_Thomas_2014_VAE/",
}