Digital Documentation Survey Continuing at Haghpat

AIST crew continues to do amazing digital documentation at the Haghpat Monastery World Heritage Site, including getting our equipment elevated to capture interior domes and architectural intricacies. Outside, use of drones, GPS and terrestrial LiDAR that documents out to 330 meters is being used along with close range detail scanning and photographic techniques.

Using a mast system we are able to elevate the scanners to obtain better line of sight for architectural documentation. The mast systems are also being utilized for photographic and videography set ups, allowing high resolution techniques to be applied to inaccessible areas of the site. Close range scan details are taken that will be merged with point cloud data from the structure. In this way, we are documenting even the finest of details and architectural features, some of which are damaged from time, weathering and events that have deteriorated their surfaces and diminished their details. The AIST team from the University of South Florida is also well equipped to document this large World Heritage complex at a variety of scales. We will use survey grade GPS to provide control for the project and to create a database of features and resource locations that will help in the management and preservation of this universally-valued treasure. Unmanned aerial vehicle platforms are allowing for newer techniques in landscape documentation such as Structure from Motion, where we will use software and mapping techniques to make 3D terrain models from 2D data such as videos.

Photogrammetry techniques will also allow 3D modeling of the site terrain and structural elements. We are documenting not only the entirety of the interior of the complex structures, but all of the site exterior features and environmental terrain settings. In this way, we will have digitally preserved and will archive this important site for future generations and for needed management and planning for long term preservation.