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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B5. Istanbul 2004 
  
cameras and the appropriate software, which is installed in our 
four computers labs' for this purpose. For more specific uses, 
two Digital Photogrametric Stations (Z/I ImageStation SSK) are 
also in use. 
The products derived from the students’ work, are used in an 
integrated environment that holds the most important 
information concerning the buildings of the old town i.e. 
e plans, sections and facades, 
e architectural details, 
e conventional and rectified images. 
It is our future target to create a GIS containing all the above 
information of every unique building of great architectural and 
archaeological importance. The base map of the GIS has been 
digitized out of 1:500 cadastral maps and illustrates in great 
detail and accuracy the most important topographical features 
that are necessary for our approach. 
2. PHOTOGRAMMETRIC DATA AND PROCESSING 
One of the best ways to perform the recording of buildings’ 
facades is by using digital photogrammetric techniques. It 
depends on the buildings’ characteristics, i.e. the relief and 
overall complexity, whether a stereoscopic or a monoscopic 
approach will be used for this purpose. In most of the cases, 
typical rectification of a single or multiple overlapping digital 
images is adequate to provide a single rectified or mosaic 
images that will be then digitised in a CAD environment to 
provide the full scale plan of the building’s facades. In some 
other cases, where fewer measurements are preferable, or the 
facade is constructed of several vertical non-coplanar faces, 
sophisticated photogrammetric applications are used combined 
with simple distance measurements. 3D-builder and a demo 
version of PhotoModeler provide an accurate enough, basic 
DXF file that is used as control point’s file for the image 
rectification in the Microstation’s IRAS/C application 
environment. By this way, less time is spent in the field, while 
the final product is more than 3-4cm accurate, which is enough 
for the reproduction of the facade plans (fig.2). In cases where 
more precise measurements are desired, Total Station is used 
combined with stereoscopic techniques and Digital 
Photogrammetric Station. 
The cameras that provide the digital images come from the 
department's equipment and in many cases the students own 
them. Low cost compact digital cameras of varying resolution 
are mostly used (from 2MPixels to SMPixels), which are able to 
provide enough geometric resolution for the final desired 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Fig. 2. The restitution a building's facade 
rectification product. The produced rectified images of 0.5cm 
ground resolution is printed in 1:50 scale. 
The 3D models of stand-alone buildings are produced using 
either the 3D Builder or the PhotoModeler applications. Lately 
thirty licences, for academic use, of the famous CAD software 
ArchiCAD were provided to our department from the local 
  
Fig. 3. Original and Rectified images using vanishing 
points rectification 
GRAPHISOFT reseller (Top Software Ltd., Greece) that helped 
a lot for the best teaching methodology. The exported VRML 
format is used just for study reasons in urban planning scale and 
for navigational purposes. For this reason, there is no need for 
high-resolution texture images causing low computer 
performance. 
In addition, a simple rectification application, working under the 
Win32 platform, has been created that is based on the 
perspective geometry and vanishing point theory (Fangi, G., et. 
al, 2001). A single distance measurement and the appearance of 
two pairs of parallel axis lines on the buildings’ images are 
enough for the production of the final rectification image (fig. 
3). 
All the above-mentioned software applications and hardware 
configurations are available to our department’s students in the 
labs’ computers and the students are encouraged to use them for 
their needs. Although they are not obligated to use 
photogrammetric techniques for the recording purposes of the 
building facades they are encouraged to do so. In the past years, 
the number of the students that are using photogrammetric