Research Student
| Email: | M.K.Kirchhoefer@lboro.ac.uk |
| Research Group: | Land Surveying |
| Research Period: | October 2008 to September 2011 |
| Supervisors: | Academic: Professor Jim Chandler Dr Rene Wackrow |
In the field of conservation, cost effective and easy to use methods are required to record cultural heritage and close-range photogrammetry has proved effective in this area. Off-the-shelf digital cameras can be used to rapidly acquire data and at low cost, allowing non-experts to become involved. One drawback of applying close-range photogrammetry in cultural heritage recording is that the exterior orientation of the camera during exposure has to be known for every image. The conventional approach involves deriving the exterior orientation for each image from spatial resection, which requires known coordinated control points. Establishing these points is time consuming and costly and in cases where targets have to be stuck on sensitive surfaces, it might even be objectionable. In this PhD programme, it is suggested that these problems can be overcome by deriving exterior orientation parameters directly. The angles for heading, pitch and roll could be derived from a cheap and compact orientation sensor mounted on an off-the-shelf digital SLR camera. To derive the position of the camera, differential GPS could be used with an antenna attached to the camera also.
It is anticipated that costs in heritage recording can further be reduced by enhancing data usability and accessibility. Therefore, this project also investigates easy-to-use methods for data storage, dissemination and visualisation.
Tow aims are defined for this PhD research:
"Devise and test an image-based recording system comprised of off-the-shelf sensors that is capable of direct exterior orientation determination and can be used by non-specialists for heritage recording."
"Investigate low-cost approaches to enhance cultural heritage data usage and accessibility."
These two aims are accomplished by achieving the following main objectives:
The image-based recording system comprises the following components:
For testing the recording system data is collected using a purposely installed test field. This data is used to assess the performance of the recording system as well as the stability of the calibration of the rotational and positional offsets between the recording system sensors (camera, orientation sensor, GPS).
The practicability of the recording system for cultural heritage recording is investigated in two case studies at cultural heritage sites in England (St. Catherine's Oratory on the Isle of Wight and Roughting Linn rock-art site in Northumberland).
Work on this project was completed and a PhD thesis was submitted for examination in November 2011. This project also produced scientific publications:
KIRCHHÖFER, M.K., CHANDLER, J.H. AND WACKROW, R. (2010). Testing and application of a low-cost photogrammetric recording system suitable for cultural heritage recording. Proceedings of RSPSoc and Irish Earth Observation Symposium; University College Cork, 1st-3rd September 2010, 330-337 [Also on CD-ROM].
KIRCHHÖFER, M.K., CHANDLER, J.H., WACKROW, R. (2011). Cultural heritage recording utilising low-cost close-range photogrammetry. CIPA XXIII International Symposium, 12-16 September 2011, Prague, Czech Republic, 8 pages [on C-ROM].
Await publishing:
KIRCHHÖFER, M.K., CHANDLER, J.H., WACKROW, R., BRYAN, P., TOVEY, S. (2011): A low-cost photogrammetric recording system for cultural heritage recording: Calibration and testing. International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, [Accepted June 2011].
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