Use of Low-Cost Spherical Cameras for the Digitisation of Cultural Heritage Structures into 3D Point Clouds

The digitization of Cultural Heritage is an important activity for the protection, management, and conservation of structures of particular historical and architectural interest. In this context, the use of low-cost sensors, especially in the photogrammetric field, represents a major research challenge. In this paper, the use of cameras capable of capturing a 360° scene with a single image was assessed. By using spherical photogrammetry and the algorithm based on the structure from motion and multi-view stereo, it is possible to reconstruct the geometry (point cloud) of an object or structure. In particular, for this experiment, the Ricoh theta SC2 camera was used. The analysis was conducted on two sites: one in the laboratory and another directly in the field for the digitization of a large structure (Colonada in Buziaș, Romania). In the case study of the laboratory, several tests were carried out to identify the best strategy for reconstructing the 3D model of the observed environment. In this environment, the approach that provided the best result in terms of both detail and dimensional accuracy was subsequently applied to the case study of Colonada in Buziaș. In this latter case study, a comparison of the point cloud generated by this low-cost sensor and one performed by a high-performance Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS), showed a difference of 15 centimeters for 80% of the points. In addition, the 3D point cloud obtained from 360° images is rather noisy and unable to construct complex geometries with small dimensions. However, the photogrammetric dataset can be used for the reconstruction of a virtual tour for the documentation and dissemination of Cultural Heritage.