CEPT Winter School 2021: Heritage and Digital methods of Documentation
Digital documentation of historic structures is one of the intriguing ways to engage with history. Advancement in technologies is opening up new ways of data capture, processing, and representation of historic structures. The course focused on two emerging techniques of documentation- Photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning to capture the ethos of the historic environments. Participants were exposed to the theory, principles, and fieldwork of these techniques. The aim was to understand the potential of these techniques for accurate documentation within a shorter time span.
The course was a 5-day CEPT Winter School workshop, Dec 20-24, 2021, at Dharmaj, Gujarat. CHC - CRDF has taken the initiative of conservation site school at this historic town near Baroda, Dharmaj, a village in Anand District. It is nicknamed the ‘Village of NRIs’, as a large number of families have moved abroad, leaving behind their mansions. It played a perfect ground for the workshop, allowing the team to learn, experiment, and explore photography, photogrammetry, aerial mapping, and laser scanning. The five-day workshop started with the introduction to architectural photography, moving on to photogrammetry on the second day followed by post-processing on the third day and 3D laser scanning on the fourth and fifth day. Imaging heritage and historic structures come along with multiple layers of complexity. Visual documentation of the built environment is essential for good practices of conservation. There is a potential to compare the varying accuracies and the compatibilities between the output collected from photography, photogrammetry, aerial mapping, and 3D laser scanning. The documented output can be further used to create awareness amongst the locals.