RECOVERING OLD STEREOSCOPIC NEGATIVES AND PRODUCING DIGITAL 3D MODELS OF FORMER APPEARANCES OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS
Á. Rodríguez Miranda
a
, J.M. Valle Melón
a a
Laboratory for the Geometric Documentation of Heritage – University of the Basque Country UPVEHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz Spain –
ldgpehu.eus
Commission II KEY WORDS: 3D modelling, Old photographs, Film negatives, Structure from Motion SfM, Perspective geometry, Monoscopic
methods in photogrammetry
ABSTRACT: Three-dimensional models with photographic textures have become a usual product for the study and dissemination of elements of
heritage. The interest for cultural heritage also includes evolution along time; therefore, apart from the 3D models of the current state, it is interesting to be able to generate models representing how they were in the past. To that end, it is necessary to resort to
archive information corresponding to the moments that we want to visualize. This text analyses the possibilities of generating 3D models of surfaces with photographic textures from old collections of analog
negatives coming from works of terrestrial stereoscopic photogrammetry of historic buildings. The case studies presented refer to the geometric documentation of a small hermitage done in 1996 and two sections of a wall year 2000.
The procedure starts with the digitization of the film negatives and the processing of the images generated, after which a combination of different methods for 3D reconstruction and texture wrapping are applied: techniques working simultaneously with
several images such as the algorithms of Structure from Motion – SfM and single image techniques such as the reconstruction based on vanishing points. Then, the features of the obtained models are described according to the geometric accuracy,
completeness and aesthetic quality. In this way, it is possible to establish the real applicability of the models in order to be useful for the aforementioned historical studies and dissemination purposes.
The text also wants to draw attention to the importance of preserving the documentary heritage available in the collections of negatives in archival custody and to the increasing difficulty of using them due to: 1 problems of access and physical conservation,
2 obsolescence of the equipment for scanning and stereoplotting and 3 the fact that the software for processing digitized photographs is discontinued.
Corresponding author
1. INTRODUCTION
Today, three-dimensional models with photographic textures are a widespread product for the visualization of the state and
appearance of elements of heritage. They are also useful for conducting studies, taking measurements and as departure point
for the generation of cartographic derivatives such as orthoimages, plan views, elevations or cross-sections. The
current development of the documentation techniques, with rising performances with regard to recording methods e.g.
improvement of the resolution of the photographic images, weight reduction of the laser scanners..., as well as the
availability of increasingly powerful software for processing and visualizing geometric data, permit offering results even
more detailed and accurate. On the other hand, both costs and complexity of use are being significantly reduced, which makes
the generation of three-dimensional models more affordable. In any case, we must not forget that virtual models are still
cartographic products; hence, they must comply with various quality criteria relating to traceability, precision, completeness,
etc. One of the frequent needs concerning elements of heritage is its
study with a time perspective so the evolution can be examined Stefani et al., 2011. In this respect, it is necessary to dispose
of comparable products from different moments, for instance, a sequence of three-dimensional models. Nevertheless, generating
models from archive information is not always simple since the features of old data regarding resolution, coverage and overlap
between images, points of view, geometry of the cameras, colour... are very different to nowadays’ datasets and, as a
consequence, the procedures and software that are in force today can be useless when it comes to process that data.
In this text, different possibilities of reprocessing old collections of film negatives coming from terrestrial photogrammetric
works originally aimed at stereoplotting are analyzed in order to generate new three-dimensional models of surfaces with
photographic textures. Film negatives were a common way of documenting during the
last decades of the 20
th
century and the first years of the 21
st
, until the wide adoption of digital photography for
photogrammetric works. By way of example, the following
This contribution has been peer-reviewed. doi:10.5194isprs-archives-XLII-2-W3-601-2017
601
chart figure 1 shows the experience in our laboratory regarding the application of different techniques for 3D
documentation based on photographs and laser scanning from 1996 up to now.
Figure 1. Timeline showing the use of different techniques for 3D documentation based on photographs and laser scanning by
the Laboratory for Geometric Documentation of Heritage of the University of the Basque Country from 1996 until now. Film
negatives refer to the second line: “stereoscopic pairs analog photography”.
There are important collections of negatives stored in archives and institutions related with cultural heritage only our
laboratory counts on around 5000 film photographs corresponding to stereopairs. They constitute an impressive
pool of information with great potential for re-use, especially because their original aim was the line drawing of the defining
contours of the recorded objects –in particular buildings and archaeological sites- which means that the information about
textures has not been extracted yet, neither has the information about the surrounding elements and everything else not directly
related with the original subject of study. Nowadays, both hardware and software for working with analog photographs are
obsolete, besides, it is not easy to find operators who know how to use them figure 2. In addition, the negatives themselves are
fragile and suffer from several conservation problems Boadas et al., 2001; Luirete Escandar, 2008.
Figure 2. Display of a stereoplotter for analog photographs, Adam MSP-2 at present, out of order, together with several
folders with 6x6 cm negatives of some projects, plans, sketches with the distribution of the control points, complementary
photographs, etc. The description of the analog equipment e.g. cameras or stereoplotters can be found in reference texts of that
time such as Atkinson, 1989. Recently Rodríguez et al, 2015, we carried out some tests with
digital terrestrial stereopairs which have been common from the mid 2000’s until now, although at the moment their use is
limited being more frequent the documentation by means of collection of convergent photographs. The study showed that,
often, there were enough photographs to reprocess the projects satisfactorily with current software options aimed at
convergent photogrammetry and to obtain new products - virtual models with photographic textures and orthoimages-
with accuracies similar to the original line drawings; therefore, these new products serve as an excellent complement to the line
drawings generated in the past. Nevertheless, in some other cases, the configuration of the
photographic shots was unsuitable for 3D modelling and it was suggested that this situation could even happen more frequently
with analog stereopairs due to several factors like the reduced availability of photographs in comparison with digital projects
as a consequence of the cost of generation and processing, the amount of error caused by the need to scan and process the
images before generating the 3D models or the noisy presence of fiducial marks over the images.
2. OBJECTIVES
