Integrated modeling systems for 3D vision

A joint project between the Interdept. Research Center of the University of Padova (CIRGEO) and Dr. Richard. M. Levy, teaching Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Design of the University of Calgary (Canada), has been undertaken aimed to the generation of a full 3D model of an historical building and the surrounding environment, based on a terrestrial laser scanning survey. The main goal of this project is to provide a 3D representation where two different contents are merged together: the object’s geometry on one hand and a set of related historical and cultural information on the other hand. Indeed, through suitable VR authoring tools, like the Virtools Dev. software, it is now possible to build VR environments around laser scanning-based 3D models, which allow the user with a certain level of interaction with the model itself. This solution opens interesting perspectives towards the use of 3D models as a mean to promote the national Cultural Heritage content among remote people: portable cave systems, comprising of double projector devices, stereo 3D converter and a wide screen display, could be profitable employed to this end. In this paper we report the first results of our VR project, i.e. creating a TLS-based 3D model of the church of Pozzoveggiani, an ancient historical building located 15 km south of Padua (Italy). The second stage of the work, i..e. the generation of an interactive VR environment based on such 3D model is still in progress at current date. Therefore we will focus here on different issues related to the generation of a fully closed model of a complex structure, a situation frequently found in the Cultural Heritage field.