THE TOWER OF THE WINDS (ATHENS) - 
RESTITUTION AND VISUALIZATION 
José Heiiaez Boquera; José Carlos Martinez Llario; Tatiana Senent; Pablo Navarro Esteve 
School of Architecture 
School of Geodesy, Cartography and Topography 
UNIVERSIDAD POL1TÉCNICA DE VALENCIA 
Camino de Vera s/n Valencia 
Spain 
e-mail:pnavarrl @ega.upv.es 
KEY WORDS: Tower, Bundle Adjustment, Restitution, Visualisation, Stereo Viewing 
ABSTRACT 
Starting from a frames series around a small model of classic architecture and with a reduced minimum support to the supposition of 
their geometry in plant, the full model has been oriented by means of an bundle adjustment. Starting from here with a simple digital 
station and combining the restitution with the digitalisation over the rectified frames, a model has been published in 3D. As 
complement ot the work, a viewer 3D, with anaglyph glasses (for b/n vision) or with active glasses (color vision), allows to see and 
to measure on the epipolar images. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Well-known as the Tower of the Winds, the water clock of Andronikos of Kyrrhos, today it is conserved in good state. Their 
construction date is located in the beginnings of the second half of the century first a.C. 1 In the literature it is mentioned by first time 
by Varros in “De re rustica” (111,5,17), in the 37 a.C. To Vitruvio (1,6,4) we owe him the water clock description, and however 
Pausanias in their description of Greece, (volume of Ática and Elide) does not mention it. 
It is an octagon of 3.20 m of side that rises on a Krepis of three steps, with representations of the eight winds, in our case eight 
winged masculine figures represented in relief, with the characteristic attributes, giving name to each one of the faces of the tower. 
According to Vitruvio, on the pyramidal cover, a brass vane with newt form indicated the address of the wind. Under the frieze, each 
face had a sundial, but without a doubt the most interesting part was its interior, with a mechanism moved by the water that marked 
the step of the time day and night, and maybe a planetarium equally worked by water. 
Figure 1 : The Tower of the Winds, or The clock of Andronikos 
The importance of this building can settle down starting from the public buildings that were it surrounding. It is supposed that the 
tower was built in a square of 100 m x 50 m that limited to the West with the Roman agora, to the North with the Laterina and the 
Exedra, and far away the Library of Adriano, to the East with the Pantheon and to the South with the Agoranomion and other non 
identified buildings. 
Proceedings 18 th International Symposium CIPA 2001 
Potsdam (Germany), September 18-21, 2001