How 3D Scanning helps to preserve historical buildings
When a devastating fire engulfed the cathedral in Paris one year ago, the world was shocked by the flames destroying one of the most historical landmarks in Europe. In less than a few hours, the iconic gothic spire disappeared along with invaluable artworks and religious relics.
The cultural loss, however, could have been much more significant, if not for the foresight of an academic historian, expert in 3D Laser Scanning.
Andrew Tallon — a Belgian art historian pioneer in the study of Gothic architecture — accurately documented the entire building just some years before the fire.
Over five days of work, in 2010, he scanned every piece of the structure, inside and out to create an unmatched record of the physical reality of the Cathedral. The result was millions of three-dimensional points in space. Professor Andrew Tallon has passed away in 2018 at the age of 49, but his foresight quickly grew in popularity as one of the saviours of this iconic site. The 3D images are considered crucial to rebuilding the 850-year-old Cathedral and its unique details.
However, the vast majority of historical buildings still do not have such accurate documentation. This poses tremendous risk of forever losing irreplaceable cultural heritage if similar accidents occur.
For a structure such as a historic building, built over hundreds of years, it is almost certain that any drawings or archival materials about the construction would be incomplete, incorrect, or outdated — which makes the process of reconstruction very difficult.
The laser scan, instead, provides precision up to the millimetre. Creating an accurate virtual replica of the building allows capturing all its correct dimensions and architectural and visual details, sometimes not visible to the human eye.
Luckily, the technology is rapidly becoming widely available, making these risks unnecessary.
Existing buildings can be scanned with millimetre precision within a few days through a user- friendly equipment, like the Leica BLK360. The scanner weighs no more than 1 kilo. And with new software like Imerso’s app, anyone can use these new tools as simple as taking a photo, without any surveying experience
The Viking stave church in Oslo
In Norway, we at Imerso took the first step and scanned the beautiful Stave Church located at the open-air museum in Oslo.
Built by the Vikings in 1157, without a single nail, the church is considered an icon of Norwegian handcraft. We scanned the outside of the building and using Imerso’s software, this heritage site was captured in not more than 30 minutes. Take a tour in the interactive viewer.
To build the wood Cathedral, the Vikings adopted a similar technique used in other parts of Europe when creating stone cathedrals. The wall timbers are positioned vertically instead of the traditional horizontal placement seen on wooden structures. The nave and the chancel inside remember conventional churches.
Initially built in the village of Gol, 170 kilometres from Oslo, the church was brought to the capital in 1884. Most of the main construction remained intact and in original form, but all of the exterior dates from the 1884–1885 restoration. One of the oldest medieval churches in Norway — and one of the last 28 remaining — it has all elements connected by wooden pegs or by a dovetail joint.
Documenting a Historical Norwegian Building
Property Owners are rapidly taking notice of this new ability to casually capture an asset in accurate 3D imagery. The Norwegian University of Life Science (NMBU), in Ås, took a step further to document a historical building from inside and outside — Tårnbygning (Tower building).
Using old drawings and other available data, NMBU used Imerso to validate the accuracy of its building documentation against the true physical reality. The entire building was scanned within a few days. All deviations between model and reality were highlighted and corrected. The speed of documentation was 30 seconds per square meter.
Start Scanning Today
Even though 3D technology is getting more affordable, the purchase of laser equipment can still be a showstopper for smaller institutions and municipalities. To support their adoption of this new technology, our team is making these devices available in both short and long-term rentals, making Imerso the only provider in Norway of such a solution as of April this year. This makes it super flexible to use this solution according to the needs of projects of any size.
All our equipment rentals come with Imerso software that allows anyone to start scanning right from Day 1, as well as a short best-practices lesson.
Contact us to know more and get started.
