Three-dimensional acquisition of large and detailed cultural heritage objects

Cultural heritage digitization is becoming more common every day, but the applications discussed in the literature address mainly the digitization of objects at a resolution proportional to the object size, using low resolution for large artifacts such as buildings or large statues, and high resolution for small detailed objects. The case studied in this paper concerns a huge physical model of imperial Rome (16 × 17.5 m) whose extremely small details forced the use of high resolution and low noise scanning, in contrast with the long range needed. This paper gives an account of the procedures and the technologies used for solving this “contradiction”.