Integrated and interactive 4D system for archaeological stratigraphy

Abstract

The digitization of some of the processes carried out in an archaeological excavation is changing the way of working at the site. Today, new technologies coexist with traditional methodologies. The study of stratigraphy can combine drawings of profiles and plans, the Harris Matrix diagram, as well as digitized files that perform a complete record of the stratigraphic sequence. However, this information is usually unaggregated from the rest of the information system that makes up the archaeological record. In this paper, we present an integrated software tool and the associated methodology to record, store, visualize and analyze the 3D stratigraphy of a site. The implementation uses spatial databases to store information of a heterogeneous nature and game engines for the visualization and interaction with this information. During the excavation process, the strata are scanned using the Tof technology, which is available in many smartphones. The resulting 3D model of the stratum, once uploaded to the software system, allows us to visualize the sequence of strata incorporating the findings into their original arrangement. Some additional tools, such as the scrollbar, help to perform a temporal analysis of the site. The result is a 4D interactive stratigraphy tool, which together with the Harris Matrix, complements the archaeological record and facilitates the work to archaeologists. This methodology also allows to speed up the on-site work and the subsequent analysis, while improving the user experience with the 3D archaeological site replica.

archeoViz: an R package for the Visualisation, Exploration, and Web Communication of Archaeological Spatial Data

“…Second, archeoViz is a lightweight, complementary alternative to more complex archaeological software, e.g. ArchField (Smith et al, 2015), Aspectus (Vurpillot et al, 2018), a "4D system" (Ortega-Alvarado et al, 2022) and to the more demanding association of GIS software and export libraries, e.g. Potree, GeoNetwork or QGIS and its Qgis2threejs plugin to export in HTML format.…”

Toward a Data Fusion Index for the Assessment and Enhancement of 3D Multimodal Reconstruction of Built Cultural Heritage

“…A first kind of approach is related to parametric-based modelling (BIM/H-BIM) in which the semantic is embedded and constrained to the attributes and relations supported in the IFC classes [36]. At the territory scale, data specialization is tackled by GIS and its web-implementation, enabling the linking of 3D assets to its documentation, possibly with linked open data [37] or a 4D framework [38]. At the object or monument scale, we can assimilate recent multi-layer [39] or multi-dimensional [40] viewers to geometric information systems.…”