ON-SITE SEMANTIC MAPPING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION AREAS

Abstract. 3D laser scanning is the state of the art in modeling archaeological excavation sites, historical sites and even entire cities or landscapes. The documentation of findings on an excavation site is an essential archaeological task. Automated systems accelerate this process and decrease the amount of error to a minimum. This paper presents a new documentation approach in industrial archaeology. It consists of a set of tools for recording and registering 3D data from excavation sites. We provide an efficient tool for visualization of acquired 3D point clouds in 3D and 2D modes. The main purpose of this software is to provide an easy to use, on-site semantic mapping tool for archaeologists. It includes functions for selecting and labeling findings. Additional information can be provided for each label. This data is exported to an XML format and serves as input for other systems and databases.