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Beutner, Sabine 
Aerial triangulation, both in manual and automated mode 
e DTM generation, both in manual and automated mode 
* Extraction of geoglyphs in 3-D vector form 
* Generation of B/W (black/white) and color digital orthoimages 
* Texture mapping and integration of vector geoglyphs 
* Generation of synthetic views and flyovers 
* Design of a datamodel and implementation on a GIS platform 
* Development of GIS-based analysis functions 
Some of these steps have to be performed in close cooperation with the archeologists. The project is not completed yet, 
therefore this is just an intermediate status report. The GIS-related issues will be presented in another publication. 
2 PROJECT AREA AND IMAGE ACQUISITION 
The ancient culture and the geoglyphs are named after the small town of Nasca, situated within the valley of the Nazca 
river, about 60 km from the Pacific ocean. The landscape of this region is dominated by vegetationless extensions of the 
western slopes of the Andes. 
It is a harsh, dry land which gets it supply of water only through small rivers carrying the precious wet down from the 
high Andes. The valleys have all the characteristics of oases and agricultural products can only be grown there. Our area 
of interest stretches between the rivers Rio Grande and Rio Nasca (compare Figure 2). This area is dominated by very flat 
plateaus of sand, gravel and small rocks. These "pampas" must have posed a real challenge for the Nasca artists and in 
fact most of the geoglyphs are located at these ideal drawing tables. 
  
  
  
Figure 2. Project region Palpa/Nasca on the Peruvian south coast 
We have selected three major geoglyph concentrations, the areas of Nasca, San Ignacio and Palpa, for our work. The 
pampa of Nasca became famous through the work of Maria Reiche. 
The Panamerican Highway cuts right through the northern part and some of the most dense geoglyph sites and its con- 
struction has done much damage to those lines and fi gures. Nowadays it is a restricted zone and one can only travel along 
the highway. This was one of the reasons why we could set only very few ground control points and why we decided to 
apply kinematic GPS in addition. Each area has been covered by a separate block and constitutes an independent project 
by itself. 
The photoflights were performed by Horizons, Inc., Rapid City, SD, USA with a Zeiss RMK A15 camera. There were 
two missions: 30.04. and 01.05.1997 for the blocks Nasca and Palpa, both in color; 23.05. and 27.05.1998 for the blocks 
Palpa and San Ignacio, resp. Nasca, all in B/W. Table 1 gives an overview of the project characteristics. In total we have 
produced more than 1000 aerial images, both in color and B/W at scales 1:5 000 for Palpa and San Ignacio and 1:10 000 
for Nasca. The image scale was chosen such that the smallest possible lines, which in the Palpa and San Ignacio areas 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B5. Amsterdam 2000. 55 
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