TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION CASE STUDY : THE OLD PALACE, SERI MENANTI

Cheong Siew Chin, Ong Chee Wei, Prof Dr Halim Setan, and Dr Zulkepli Majid

Photogrammetry & Laser Scanning Research Group, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia. email: 1ahxu813csc@gmail.com,2 ongcheewei86@gmail.com, 3halim@utm.my, 4 zulkepli@utm.my Abstract Over the years, modern 3D data collection techniques show significant improvements in resolution and accuracy. In recent years, the numbers of cultural heritage buildings documented by using modern three-dimensional (3D) surveying technologies have improved greatly. The case study historical building is The Old Palace, Seri Menanti, the royal capital of the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The Istana served as the official residence of the royal family until 1931, before it was converted to a Royal Museum in 1992. The need of documented the existing high historical value structure was foreseen in United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In this project, terrestrial laser scanner is used to capture this cultural heritage building data. This study using terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) to capture 3D range information to generate 3D building models. Creation of heritage building model for conservation purposes and the realization of 3D Virtual Model of historical for viewer were concerned by researcher, academician and all related industries. One of the major purposes is to increase the effectiveness on information distribution to the public, through visualization dissemination. The development of laser scanner technology address the market needs in producing 3D model. The advancement of modelling techniques using point clouds further expand the possibility of using 3D laser scanner towards the development of higher Level of Detail (LoD) building modelling. This study discussed the inputs from terrestrial laser scanner to succeed the 3D cultural heritage building modelling while the focus of this study will be on the investigation of using TLS for the development of heritage documentation. Keywords: heritage documentation, terrestrial laser scanning, 3d modelling and level of details. 1.0 Introduction There is an increasing demand for three dimensional (3D) city models for many applications and users worldwide by Dursun & Buhur (2006). One of the major purposes is to increase the effectiveness on information distribution to the public, through visualization dissemination. The 3D model of historical building is beneficial for documentation purposes as high valued cultural heritage do not last forever. The 3D model can be used for documentation, preservation and future reconstruction of heritage building. The historical structure proposed in the project is a well known cultural heritage, The Old Palace Seri Menanti, as shown in Figure 1.0 which located at Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. In February 2009, the Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal announced that the Istana

Lama Seri Menanti is among ten historical structures in Malaysia gazette as a national heritage, along with Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur and The Stadthuys in Malacca The wooden palace, Seri Menanti Palace was one of oldest cultural heritage that presented the art and craft of woodcarving skills of Malays people of Malaysia. The palace was designed entirely by two local Malay master carpenters and was constructed the traditional way, without using a single metal nail, and the entire four-storey building is literally held together only by mortise-and-tenon joints and hardwood dowels and rivets (Anuar, 2007).

Figure 1.0: The Old Palace Seri Menanti with Faro Laser Scanner System

The Istana Seri Menanti was itself a replacement for an older, grander palace that was destroyed in a fire. Today, as with so many traditional crafts, there are very few young carvers with the skills and the backing to reproduce such a masterpiece. Despite all the careful preservation work done on the Istana Seri Menanti, eventually, inevitably, time will take its toll and Malaysia will lose another irreplaceable treasure. In Malaysia, many heritage buildings with architectural and historical significance that influenced by several architectural styles such as Malays architecture, Portuguese architecture and Dutch architecture worthy to be listed or gazetted as National Heritage Building under National Heritage Act 2005 (Act 465) (Salleh and Ahmad, 2009). Documentation of the historical buildings are evolved from the simple hand-draw sketches to sophisticated 3D virtual reality representation. In particular, 3D modelling plays a significant role in historical buildings visualization. There are several documentation tools that provide 3D models for visualisation purposes include digital photogrammetry, laser scanning, Geographic Information System and Computer AidedDesign (Eppich and Chabbi, 2005). This project proposes the use of terrestrial laser scanner as the primary tool to produce 3D model of the Old Palace Seri Menanti. The available methods like photogrammetry are proven useful but the advancement of new laser scanning technology providing a higher accuracy choice to carry out this approach, by using 3D laser scanner. The study focuses on the 3D laser scanning method to generate LoD 4 3D cultural heritage model. The sensors in FARO Photon 120 system are referring to the digital camera and laser scanner to carry out data capturing. FARO Photon Laser Scanner 120/20 system integrated with digital camera, Nikon DSLR D300s is used to measure the 3D geometry data of historical building for capturing high resolution range data and digital images for texture mapping. For the past decades, development of laser scanning technology had foreseen that the trend of the cultural heritage structures require high accuracy 3D modelling technique for photorealistic

presentation and many other GIS application such as cultural heritage conservation and management concerns/issues. 2.0 Level Of Details (LOD) As the historical buildings require fast and compact data capturing for the cultural heritage conservation and management concerns, TLS is an effective tool known by researcher in the world. This project proposes the use of terrestrial laser scanner as the primary tool to produce 3D model of the Old Palace Seri Menanti. The available methods like photogrammetry are proven useful but the advancement of new laser scanning technology providing a higher accuracy choice to carry out this approach, by using 3D laser scanner. This study is meant to determine the capability of terrestrial laser scanner to achieve high quality detailed data collection while it is aiming to produce high LoD 3D model. There are different definitions and standard had been set for the high quality in 3D model. In this study, the high quality was referring to the term LoD that being introduced by CityGML. One of the concepts of LoD 4 is referred to the OpenGIS City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard by Groger et al. (2008) in Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. Level of Details (LoD) is the standard to reflect independent data collection processes with differing application requirements. The different LoD simultaneously, enabling the analysis and visualisation of the same object with regards to different degrees of resolution. The expecting result is to generate building model follows the LoD standard refers to CityGML. The concept of LoD of this study was aiming to produce a LoD 2 cultural heritage building model. The data collection was done by using FARO Photon Laser Scanner 120/20. This 3D laser scanner was used to capture the building information in point clouds format. With the integrated digital camera in the Faro laser scanner system; the high resolution digital camera (Nikon DSLR D300s) was used to capture the RGB value of the cultural heritage building. All the captured digital images were meant for the colorization of the registered point clouds from scanning work. 2.1 Requirement for LOD Kolbe et al. (2005) define five LoD for multi scale modelling for LoD in CityGML. Figure 2 shows the classification of LoD defined by Kolbe. However, it will be within the responsibility of the user or application to make sure objects in different LOD refer to the same real-world object (See Figure 3). The coarsest level LOD0 is essentially a two and a half dimensional Digital Terrain Model, over which an aerial image or a map may be draped. LOD1 is the well-known blocks model comprising prismatic buildings with flat roofs. In contrast, a building in LOD2 has differentiated roof structures and thematically differentiated surfaces. Vegetation objects may also be represented. LOD3 denotes architectural models with detailed wall and roof structures, balconies, bays and projections. High-resolution textures can be mapped onto these structures. In addition, detailed vegetation and transportation objects are components of a LOD3 model. LOD4 completes a LOD3 model by adding interior structures for 3D objects. For example, buildings are composed of rooms, interior doors, stairs, and furniture.

Class of LOD LoD0 LoD1 LoD2 LoD3 LoD4

Type of Model Regional , Landscape City, Region City Districts, Projects Architectural Models (Outside), Landmarks Architectural models (interior)

Description Contains 2.5D DTM Without roof structures Including roof structures Detailed architecture Including interior model

Figure 2: Classification of LoD defined by Kolbe. (Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (2008). OpenGIS City Geography Markup LanguagE (CityGML) Encoding Standard: OGC 08-007r1)

Figure 3: The five levels of detail (LOD) defined by CityGML. (Source: IGG Uni Bonn)

Through using Faro laser scanner system, the output will be the registered 3D point clouds of the cultural heritage building with colour information attached to the point clouds for users visualisation. The further methodology will be the modelling of the Seri Menanti based on the registered RGB point clouds data from the previous steps. The 3D point clouds registered will be used in the extraction of the layout of the cultural heritage building structure. This stage involves the building information extraction based on 3D point clouds. Besides the manually digitising of the building layout, the automatic building feature extraction was done in CAD software. The modelling was based on the layout plan extracted from the point clouds captured. The 3D surveying technology of this terrestrial laser scanning can help in future preservation work such as building reconstruction and renovation. This terrestrial laser scanning technique has very high potential and can be beneficial for the development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for various applications. 3.0 Heritage Building Modelling Several international organizations including UNESCO have expressed concern that with the availability and affordability of rendering systems there is the tendency for interpretations of world heritage monuments to be taken out of context.
Many of the cultural heritages in Southeast Asia instrument the development and promotion of tourism industry in this region. Culture is defined as the whole complex of distinct spiritual, intellectual, emotional and material features that characterize a particular society or social

group and its way of life. Culture includes the arts and literatures as well as lifestyles, value systems, creativity, knowledge systems, traditions and beliefs (Ahmad, 2006).

Paper by Kaartinen et al. (2005) confirms with experiments that laser scanning is more suitable in deriving building heights, extracting planar roof faces and ridges of the roof whereas the photogrammetry and aerial images are more suitable in building outline and length determination. A generic definition of a laser scanner, taken from Bohler and Marbs (2002) is:
Any device that collects 3D coordinates of a given region of an objects surface automatically and in a systematic pattern at a high rate (hundreds or thousands of points per second) achieving the results (i.e. three-dimensional co-ordinates) in near real time.

Laser scanning is at its best in deriving building heights, extracting planar roof faces and ridges of the roof. In building outline determination, point density, shadowing of trees and complexity of the structure were the major reasons for site wise variations of the laser scanner based results. In building length determination with laser scanning, the complexity of the buildings was the major cause for site wise variation rather than the point density. Height determination accuracy followed exactly the laser scanning point density. Roof inclination determination was more accurate when using laser data than photogrammetry, but there exists large variation in quality due to methods and test sites (i.e. complex buildings). In general the target plane accuracy is affected by the degree of automation. The target height accuracy seems to be almost independent of the degree of automation. Besides capturing the 3D geometry data, the laser scanner acquires also an intensity value of each point. The intensity is the electronic signal strength obtained by converting and amplifying the backscattered optical power. The intensity value can be used for the point cloud visualize analysis purpose. The intensity of the points can also be further utilized in more sophisticated applications such as the texturing registration and the categorization by the surface material goods. For applications in architecture (e.g. building acquisition) it is appropriate and viable to use the laser scanner for stone-fair mapping or for the modelling of object details, such as sculptures and ornamentations, in combination with photogrammetry if such objects can be scanned with a very high point density as mentioned by work of Kersten (2006). 3.1 Phrase of Project There are four phrases involved in this project (See Figure 4). The data collection phase was done using the FARO terrestrial laser scanner system to acquire a detailed 3D data. The second phrase involved data registration in Faro Scene then the 3D modelling for the point clouds data in AutoCAD 2011. The registered point clouds data from indoor and outdoor will be modelled and combined. The output of the model is the historical building model that giving indoor, outdoor model and also the rooftop part was builds based on the design of rooftop part in other level, e.g. : level 2 and level 3. The data self checking can be carried individually in all the phases involved as in this workflow of cultural heritage modelling involved many commercial software. The checking of the registered point clouds model from Phase 2 can be carried out in Phase 3 using the visualized model in Pointools Edit 1.1. The editing of point clouds data is allowed in this Pointools Edit software. The final verification of the building features extract from the 3D

cultural heritage model produced in Phase 2 will be compared with the onsite measurement at Seri Menanti structure.
Phase 1 : Data Collection Faro Photon 120 YES Phase 2 : Data Processing Data Registration & Visualisation - Faro Scene (.fls) NO YES Phase 3 : Results Presentation Pointool Edit & View Pro 1.1 (.fls .ptl .avi) SketchUp 8.0 publish in Google Earth Indoor & Outdoor Model (.wrl) etc. NO 3D Modelling - AutoCad 2010 (.pcg) Nikon DSLR D300s

YES Phase 4 : Verification On site Data Checking (using LoD standard in CityGML) Figure 4: Phases in LoD 4 Building Modelling Using Faro Terrestrial Laser Scanner

4.0 Advantages And Drawbacks The conventional method manually make 3D model of building with 3D CAD by extruding 2D outlines to building height, or modelling manually detailed 3D geometry referring to drawings and photographs also with 3D CAD. There is also a surveying technique called triangulation method, which locating a point on site accurately by establishing its distance from two other points. The angle of inclination must be considered in order to obtain a more accurate measurement. The approximate scale is included into photographs using scale stick or measuring tape (Burns, 1989). Although photogrammetry method had been established at that time, but the maturation still have a lot to be enhanced. Traditional method requires enormous amount of time to manually processing 3D buildings. Acquiring measurements from photographs has its advantages because everything seen by the camera is documented and the photographs are very informative on condition and texture. The accuracy of the high resolution images captured by digital photogrammetry in the close range will be affected due to few factors. Figure 5 illustrated the relationship of the methods used with the considering factors of users in 3D building modelling. Firstly, the raise of the base to depth ratio increase the accuracy. Besides, data processing using convergent images will also increase the accuracy rather than images with parallel optical axes. Secondly, the numbers of images used to restructure the photogrammetric model will affect the accuracy of digital photogrammetry technique. The accuracy is enhanced extensively depend on the same common point appears in the different images. The accuracy will only increase when the geometric configuration is strong and the measured points are well defined. Lastly, the ground pixel sizes which represent the ground dimension corresponding to one pixel from the image. The smaller the ground pixel

sizes, the higher the accuracy which refer to the megapixel of the used camera and the image scale (Clarke et al., 1998; Abdelhafiz, 2000; Fraser, 2001; Gruen and Beyer, 2001; El-Hakim et al., 2003a).
Method vs Problem Time Consuming Field Work High Processing Power Man Power Data Capturing Data Processing Level of Details Accuracy Cost Conventional ; More Photogrammetry X ; Least ; Moderate Terrestrial Laser Scanner ; Moderate ; More ; Moderate ; High ; High ; High ; High

X ; Least ; More

X ; Least ; Moderate ; Moderate ; Moderate ; Moderate

X ; Least X ; Least X ; Least X ; Least

Figure 5: Effectiveness For Different Method In Building Modelling

Currently, as variety of laser scanners are available on the market, varying in measurement principle, accuracy, capturing speed, measurable distance and angle, price and so on (Boehler et al., 2003). The high accuracy and resolution of the rapid 3D point clouds acquisition allow low cost and impressive generation of the as-built engineering models and features extraction of cultural heritages. In order to get an accurate 3D point cloud data of the whole object surface there are two factors that need to be concerned such as distance accuracy and space resolution of the laser scanner (Boehler and Marbs, 2005). One of the advantages of using an active laser scanning is that it encountered the difficulty with daylight and illumination conditions. Work of English Heritage team, United Kingdom (UK) in using laser scanning for the survey of the cultural heritage had successfully produced a working document for cultural heritage documentation. Further work is required to define standard deliverables relevant to cultural heritage subjects. These standard deliverables should reflect the capabilities of the machines on the desktop of archaeology and architecture units (Barber et al, 2003). The standard deliverables mention by Barber et al (2009) may be 2D or 3D vector drawings, meshed models using raking light to highlight particular features or perhaps CAD models with annotations providing condition assessment or aiding interpretation. Through the research project of English Heritage in the survey of the Chester Amphitheatre site, Cheshire, it is found that it is necessary to outline the use of additional data sources to supplement laser scanning and to decide on suitable data formats for the archiving of point clouds. 5.0 Results The Figure 6 is the intensity image for interior part of the building in planar view and the registered raw point clouds indoor data. The distribution of the registration target is important so that the data registed give a good quality 3D geometric network to the point clouds. Data surveyed is in high precision and it is helpful to the synchronization of surveying and processing to take place. The 3D building model is presented at exact coordinate system with

texture mapped. The colorization function allows the texture mapping of RGB information to the point clouds and make the 3D model more realistic.

Figure 6: (Left) Intensity image of control point in scan data; (Right) Point Cloud data in 3D View

Figure 7: : Front Door Sampling for Modelling and Texturing

Figure 7 displays the front door as a sampling of part of the building structure. The front part of the Seri Menanti is the main entrance of the building, the front view of the entrance consists of three scan stations. Before the RGB value attachment, all the point clouds are in greyscale as the same illustrated in Figure 6.

Figure 8: 3D Visualization Model of Seri Menanti after Point Clouds Colorization. (3D Clear View)

Figure 8 is the data registered for exterior part of the building in clear view. The RGB value was attached to the point clouds. The exterior model of Seri Meranti consists of 23 scan surrounding the building.

Figure 9: : Digitizing Layout for Seri Menanti from Point Clouds in AutoCAD 2011

The modelling of the building was basically combined some manual digitizing work with the automatic generation function in AutoCAD 2011. The point clouds was import into AutoCAD 2011 to index into 3D modelling format in AutoCAD. The point clouds were then ready to be used in CAD software for modelling. In this project, the software proposed is AutoCAD 2011.In Figure 8, the 3D point clouds model was imported into the software and the digitized layout of Seri Menanti from top view was shown. The registered data was just like a realistic visualised model of the Seri Menanti. The floating point of the point clouds might have snapping problem when using manual digitizing. But looking at the point clouds was giving 2mm accuracy. Then it might not really an issue as the snapping or digitizing errors of the building structure are still controlled in mm accuracy. Figure 10 and 11 illustrated the reverse engineering of the 3D Seri Menanti model by sectioning and feature extraction method based on point clouds. Comparing to the convention building details survey by total station, this kind of complex historical building can be modelled in shorter time and with this 3D point clouds it gives more realistic building model.

Figure 10: The building feature extraction using the point clouds data.

The quality of the merging of the different scan data dependent on the amount and quality of the common points being used for data registration. The building feature extraction was similar to the layout digitizing in this historical building modelling project. 6.0 Summary Traditionally way to document valued historical building is not sufficient and cannot fulfilled the market needs and requirement for various application of it. The 3D laser

scanning was based on the non-contact method and considered to be the most efficient approach for measuring and modelling of historical building. Conventional method required operators expertise to manually model the building with 3D CAD software. The geometry of objects is created one by one in CAD and Computer Graphic (CG) software (Kobayashi, 2007). Due to the rapid development of the urban areas, the fast and automatic reconstruction is needed for the production of the 3D model. For large numbers of building to be modelled for various purposes and application the automatic generation has reduced the time of model production through the automatic generation programs. Beside consider the program used to generate the model, the hardware chosen also important to ensure the data acquisition can minimise the time consumed.

Figure 11: Digitizing and feature extraction of Seri Menanti

7.0 References
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Grger, G., Kolbe, T. H., Czerwinski, A., and Nagel, C. 2008. OpenGIS City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard: OGC 08-007r1. Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. Gruen, A. and Beyer, H. A. 2001. System calibration through self-calibration. In Calibration and Orientation of Cameras in Computer Vision (Eds. A. Gruen and T. S. Huang). Springer, Berlin. Vol. 34, 235 pages, pp. 163-193. Kaartinen et al. 2005. Accuracy of 3D City Models: Eurosdr Comparison. ISPRS WG III/3, III/4, V/3 Workshop "Laser scanning 2005". September 12-14, 2005. Enschede, the Netherlands, 227-232. Kersten, T.P. 2006. Combination and Comparison of Digital Photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanning for the Generation of Virtual Models in Cultural Heritage Applications. The 7th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, VAST, pp. 207 214. S. Dursun & S. Buhur 2006. 3D City Modelling of Istanbul Historic Peninsula by Combination of Aerial Images and Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data. Unpublished note. Institute of Photogrammetry and Geoinformation, Germany. Salleh, N.H. and Ahmad, A.G. 2009. Fire Safety Management In Heritage Buildings: The Current Scenario In Malaysia. 22nd CIPA Symposium. 11-15 October. Kyoto, Japan.