Cent. Eur. J. Comp. Sci.
• 2(3) • 2012 • 272-282
DOI: 10.2478/s13537-012-0022-8
Central European Journal of Computer Science
Digital preservation of historical buildings using virtual
reality technologies
Research Article
František Hrozek∗ , Branislav Sobota† , Csaba Szabó‡
Department of Computers and Informatics,
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics,
Technical University of Košice, Letná 9, 04200 Košice, Slovakia
Received 02 February 2012; accepted 17 August 2012
Abstract: 3D model creation and visualization is often used in digital preservation of looks and structure of historical build-
ings. Virtual reality (VR) technologies facilitate this 3D model creation and visualization. 3D scanner can be used
for acceleration of the data collection and model creation. 3D displays can be used to improve visual perception
and 3D printing can be used for physical model creation. In this paper is presented the way for preservation of
historical buildings using virtual reality technologies. Example of preservation procedure, which consists from
3D scanning, 3D model creation, optimization and visualization, is shown on the historical building of The State
Theatre of Košice.
Keywords: virtual reality technologies • 3D scanning • 3D modeling • 3D visualization • preservation of historical buildings
© Versita Sp. z o.o.
1. Introduction
Preservation of looks of historical buildings is an important part of cultural heritage preservation. In the past, there were
for historical building preservation blueprints, sketches or paintings used. Today, technologies allow us to create 3D
models of historical buildings that can be used for preservation. Under the said phrase it is commonly understood that
these are steps of various structural modifications, which then contribute to the preservation of the historical building.
Application of virtual reality technologies helps to the preservation of looks of the historical buildings. Preservation
of design documentation of the building is not a suitable technology of preservation. However, for the most historic
buildings it is considered important to preserve all the information on construction plans and process of construction of
buildings in the past. Of course, this point of view implies the possibility to apply the technology of virtual reality as
preservation of information about construction of buildings.
∗
E-mail: [email protected]
†
E-mail: [email protected]
‡
E-mail: [email protected] (Corresponding author)
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The creation of a 3D model of a historical building needs a lot of effort. Everything begins with collecting of information
and analysis (preparing phase). When the data are prepared, the 3D model creation begins (modeling phase). A check
of model for errors follows after 3D digital model creation (verification phase). The visualization of the final model is
the last step. This process is depicted in Fig. 1 [2, 3].
Figure 1.
! Modeling and visualization process.
Modeling and visualization phase can be improved by using virtual reality technologies. Modeling phase can be improved
with 3D scanning and visualization phase with 3D displays and 3D printers.
In this paper the way for preservation of historical buildings using VR technologies is presented. Section 2 presents 3D
scanning problem area. In section 3, the scanning process of The State Theatre of Košice is described. Section 4 shows
verification procedures used during visualization preparation. Section 5 presents VR technologies that can be used for
visualization. Section 6 summarizes information presented in the paper.
2. 3D model acquisition process
The 3D model acquisition process (Fig. 2) consists of two main stages which are [4, 5]:
• 3D scanning,
• data processing.
Figure 2. 3D model acquisition process: (a) original object, (b) scanning process, (c) scanned object (point cloud), (d) model without texture,
(e) visualized final textured object.
2.1. 3D scanning
In general, the result of a 3D scan is a set of points in space with corresponding 3D coordinates called point cloud
(Fig. 2-c). To capture the whole object, a series of scans from various angles has to be made. There are several types
of 3D scanners, which differ in the technology used for obtaining a point cloud. They can be divided into two main
categories:
Contact scanners. Contact scanners require a physical contact with the object being scanned. Although they are usually
very precise, they are also much slower (order of 103 Hz) than non-contact scanners (order of 105 Hz). A typical
example of a contact 3D scanner is a coordinate measuring machine (CMM).
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Non-contact scanners. Non-contact scanners use radiation to acquire required information about objects. They are of
two basic types: passive and active. The main advantage of passive scanners is that they are cheap as they do not
require so specialized hardware to operate. To scan objects, they only use existing radiation in its surroundings
(usually visible light). In contrast, active scanners are equipped with their own radiation emitter (usually emitting
laser light). While the latter are considerably more expensive, they are also much more accurate and able to scan
over much bigger distances (up to few km).
2.2. Data processing
Data processing consists of several parts. First, the point cloud has to be meshed, i.e. the points have to be connected
into a collection of triangles (called faces). The next step is to align the scans from various angles to create the whole
object surface. The aligned scans then have to be merged into one continuous mesh, so that no overlapping parts
occur. The merging process also involves filling the eventual ”holes” (unscanned parts) in the model. Aligning and mesh
creation step can be switched if it is required for data processing. Additionally, there is an optional step to simplify
the mesh, which consists of reducing the number of triangles in order to save memory needed to visualize the final 3D
model.
Figure 3. Leica ScanStation 2.
2.3. Used scanner
For scanning, the Leica Scanstation 2 3D scanner (Fig. 3) from Leica Geosystems was used. More details about this
3D scanner (e.g. scanning range, scanning rate or scanning angles) at manufacturer’s webpage [9].
There are different types of scanners. The one used in the experiments is of type time-of-flight. That means it is an
active scanner that uses laser light to probe the subject. It uses a time-of-flight laser rangefinder. The laser rangefinder
finds the distance of a surface by timing the round-trip time of a pulse of light. A laser is used to emit a pulse of light
and the amount of time before the reflected light is seen by a detector is timed.
Since the speed of light is known (c), the round-trip time determines the travel distance of the light, which is twice the
distance between the scanner and the surface [9]. Let t be the round-trip time, then distance d is given by the following
equation:
c·t
d= . (1)
2
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3. The scanning process of The State Theatre of Košice
3.1. 3D scanning
For scanning of any object it is important to find the right scanning positions to acquire the best 3D scans with the
minimum number of scans. Optimal number of scans for buildings that has rectangular ground-plan (like the State
Theatre of Košice) is eight. Four scanning positions are perpendicular to the walls (Fig. 4, positions: 1, 3, 5, 7)
and another four scanning positions lie approximately on the diagonals of the building (Fig. 4, positions: 2, 4, 6, 8).
Schematic view of scanning positions for the State Theatre of Košice are shown on Fig. 4. Height of scanner for all
eight scanning positions was 1.8 m and distance to theatre is shown in Table 1.
Figure 4. Schematic view of scanning positions.
The scanning process consisted of the following steps (each step except the first one was done in the Cyclone software):
• placing markers (Fig. 5) (these markers serve for scans aligning; to align two scans at least 3 markers are needed
that are mutual for both scans),
Figure 5. Markers used for scans aligning.
• setting horizontal and vertical angle for scanning,
• creating a photography of scanned object (this photography serves as texture for scanned object),
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Digital preservation of historical buildings using virtual reality technologies
• setting scanning resolution (for scanning the resolution 2 cm× 2 cm was used; this resolution was selected after
resolution tests and offers good scan details with reasonable scanning time),
• 3D scanning,
• acquiring exact positions of markers.
Photography creation time, scanning angle and time of every scanning position are shown in the following table (Tab. 1).
Textured point cloud scanned from position 5 is shown on Fig. 6.
Table 1. Scanning times and angles.
Scanning position Distance [m] Photo creation time Horizontal angle Vertical angle Scanning time
1 17.0 2m 5s 100° 43° 9m 35s
2 23.5 2m 1s 62° 45° 5m 29s
3 25.1 1m 56s 78° 51° 8m 5s
4 24.5 1m 30s 50° 45° 4m 15s
5 17.5 2m 2s 105° 43° 10m 35s
6 15.0 1m 20s 42° 31° 3m 44s
7 26.4 1m 25s 68° 34° 5m 59s
8 30.0 1m 24s 35° 27° 4m 30s
Figure 6. Point cloud with texture (scanned from position 5).
3.2. Data processing
Data processing was divided into following parts:
• aligning point clouds and mesh creation,
• mesh simplifying.
3.2.1. Aligning point clouds and mesh creation
For point clouds aligning, Cyclone was used (Fig. 7 shows part of Cyclone that serves for aligning). Point clouds can
be aligned manually or automatically. For manual aligning it is necessary to pick at least 3 points that are mutual for
both aligned point clouds.
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Figure 7. Aligning point clouds using Cyclone from positions 7 and 8.
Automatic aligning is similar to manual (also at least 3 point are necessary) but points are taken automatically from
coordinates taken by scanning markers. For point clouds aligning of The State Theatre of Košice, the automatic aligning
method was used.
Fig. 8 shows final point cloud created from all eight point clouds. Final step of this part was mesh creation from point
clouds using Cyclone.
Figure 8. Final point cloud of The State Theatre of Košice after merging.
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3.2.2. Mesh simplifying
For mesh simplifying, the 3D modeling application 3ds Max [7] was used. Simplifying consisted from two parts:
• deleting meshes that did not belong to theatre building (for example parts of surrounding buildings that were
acquired together with the theatre building – Fig. 9),
Figure 9. Final point cloud of The State Theatre of Košice after merging.
• simplifying theatre mesh using 3ds Max Optimize function. For the Optimize function the default setting was
used, only the parameter Face thresh was set to 6.0. This setting was selected after tests and offers good ratio
between mesh details and vertices/faces number.
By deleting meshes that did not belong to the theatre and by using the Optimize function a reduction to 3 715 977
vertices (63.3%) and 5 814 551 faces (56.5%) was achieved. Table 2 shows vertices and faces count before and after
simplifying.
The simplifying function deals with the problem of enormous huge number of vertices and faces. [1] defines it as the
process of reducing the number of faces used in the surface while keeping the overall shape, volume and boundaries
preserved as much as possible. It is the opposite of subdivision. The algorithm can simplify any oriented 2-manifold
surface, with any number of connected components, using a method known as edge collapse. Roughly speaking, the
method consists of iteratively replacing an edge with a single vertex, removing 2 triangles per collapse. Edges are
collapsed according to a priority given by a user-supplied cost function, and the coordinates of the replacing vertex are
determined by another user-supplied placement function. The algorithm terminates when a user-supplied stop predicate
is met, such as reaching the desired number of edges. As it is given by the definition, there is a single algorithm reducing
both the count of vertices and faces.
There are two basic types of methods of simplification[1]. Global error tracking methods produce highly accurate
simplifications but take up a lot of additional space. Cost-driven methods, produce slightly less accurate simplifications
but take up much less additional space, even none in some cases. The Optimize function tracks global error.
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Table 2. Vertices and faces before/after simplifying.
Before simplifying After simplifying
Scanning position
Vertices Faces Vertices Faces
1 472 333 807 419 244 095 341 884
2 923 648 1 630 899 609 886 1 005 252
3 1 500 267 2 661 869 1 240 775 2 144 765
4 768 476 1 373 441 515 857 880 426
5 819 735 1 413 898 445 570 7664 532
6 270 690 460 492 128 263 179 461
7 429 621 730 319 204 790 271 490
8 680 920 1 208 556 326 741 326 741
Entire model 5 865 690 10 286 893 3 715 977 5 814 551
The selected method uses various parameters, but for the purpose of our simplification, only one of them was set to
different value than the defaults given by the software (these default values are coming from the acceptance testing of
the product).
The Face Thresh parameter [7] sets the threshold angle used to determine which faces are collapsed. Low values produce
less optimization but better approximations of the original shape. Higher values improve optimization, but are more likely
to result in faces that render poorly. Default value is 4.0, used value is 6.0.
4. Verification experiments for visualization preparation
The digital preservation procedure was prepared based on several experiments. These experiments consisted of almost
the same steps as presented in this paper.
The aim of the experiments was to evaluate the scanning procedure and its planning phase, to collect suitable param-
eter values for data processing such mesh simplification and find limitations of the 3D visualization architectures that
determine these processing parameters.
The scanning parameters were based on the scanner manual and empirically derived from the experience gained during
the experiments, where the following objects were scanned:
• human faces (to check resolution and scanning time limits),
• the Institute of Computer Technology (ICT) building (a modern style building in the university campus),
• the classic style building at Park Komenského 3 (also in the campus),
• the St. Michael Chapel in Košice.
In the first iteration, all scanned data were processed using default values of the used data processing software. If the
processing failed or lasted disproportionately long in comparison to the amount of data, the processing parameters were
fine tuned. Failure in processing was evaluated as checking the alignment of the scans, completeness and continuity of
the model. The initial level of detail was high, but this could change during later processing steps.
The created 3D models of the faces and later only buildings were used in visualization using the available technologies
(these will be presented in the following section). The fidelity of the created virtual reality system was measured using
subjective classification and objective values such as CPU load, memory and system swap usage, and processing speed
based on frames-per-second property of visualization. If any of the available visualization systems was not capable to
a speed of 24 frames-per-second, a new version of the original 3D model was created by entering a new iteration of
scanned data processing.
These iterations could lead to two situations:
• the final 3D model remains unbroken after simplification meaning the level of detail is suitable for visualization,
or
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Digital preservation of historical buildings using virtual reality technologies
• the level of detail in the resulting 3D model is too low meaning the parameter fine tuning failed. In this case the
model version was dropped and a new iteration was started with a different strategy of data processing parameter
tuning.
The simplification procedures were used only for visualization preparation. The original 3D models that needed a
simplification due to their very high level of detail were kept and preserved as originals.
5. Visualization using VR technologies
5.1. 3D displays
3D displays allow information presentation in three dimensions. There exist several technologies for 3D displaying and
each technology has its advantages and disadvantages. There are several types of 3D displays that can be used for 3D
visualization [6].
Our choise for the purpose of 3D visualization for this paper are a passive stereoscopic system and an autostereoscopic
3D display.
5.1.1. Passive stereoscopic system
This system uses passive stereoscopic technology based on INFITEC technology (more details about INFITEC technology
at [8]). The parts of this system (Fig. 10) are as follow:
• pair of projectors with INFITEC filters and glasses,
• special projection screen,
• mouse or ”space mouse” for navigation in 3D scene,
• rendering cluster consisting from three PCs with cluster version of visualization software called SuperEngine.
Rendering cluster currently supports scenes rendering up to 5 million polygons. Rendering performance of this cluster
can be extended by adding other computers to the cluster.
Figure 10. Parts of stereoscopic system: screen, glasses and projectors.
5.1.2. Autostereoscopic 3D display
The selected autostereoscopic 3D display is Philips WOWvx (Fig. 11). 3D image is created using the 2D-plus-depth
method. More details about this 3D display and 2D-plus-depth method at manufacturer’s webpage [10]. Fig. 11 shows
3D visualization of The State Theatre of Košice using Philips WOWvx.
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Figure 11. 3D visualization using Philips WOWvx.
5.2. 3D printers
3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down
successive layers of material. 3D printers are generally faster, more affordable and easier to use than other manufacturing
technologies. 3D printers offer developers the ability to print 3D models for visualization, testing or direct parts creation.
The 3D printer used in this research is ZPrinter 450 (Fig. 12 left). More details about this 3D printer (e.g. maximum
printing dimensions or printing resolution) at manufacturer’s webpage [11]. Fig. 12 (right) shows 3D model of St. Michael
Chapel which was printed with ZPrinter 450. Work on the printed model of The State Theatre of Košice is currently
underway.
Figure 12. ZPrinter 450 (left) and printed model of St. Michael Chapel (right).
6. Conclusion
The aim of this paper was presentation of digital historical building modeling and visualization for cultural heritage
preservation (i.e. digitization and presentation) using virtual reality technologies. Example of preservation procedure,
which uses 3D scanning, 3D model creation, optimization and visualization, is explained on the historical building of
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The State Theatre of Košice. For scanning the Leica ScanStation 2 3D scanner was used. Point clouds were aligned
and meshed using Cyclone software. Final mesh (3D model) was simplified using 3ds Max. Final model consists of 3
715 977 vertices and 5 814 551 faces. For visualization purposes these VR technologies were presented:
• 3D displays - passive stereoscopic system with INFITEC technology and autostereoscopic 3D display Philips
WOWvx,
• 3D printing - ZPrinter 450.
Presented information shows that VR technologies are very suitable for creation and visualization of 3D models used in
preservation of historical buildings. Also VR technologies simplify 3D model creation and visualization process.
The simplification procedures were used only for visualization preparation. The original 3D models that needed a
simplification due to their very high level of detail were kept and preserved as originals.
Future work will be focused on:
• implementation of other VR technologies into digital historical building preservation (e.g. augmented reality or
head mounted displays),
• digital preservation of other historical buildings in Slovak Republic.
Acknowledgments
This work is the result of the project implementation: Center of Information and Communication Technologies for Knowl-
edge Systems (ITMS project code: 26220120030) supported by the Research & Development Operational Program
founded by the ERDF.
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