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deliver the required results in terms of completeness of the 
object and reliability of the measurements. Under these 
conditions high quality results need still manual measurements. 
We believe that the results of the reconstruction (estimated 
accuracy of the surface elements: around 5 cm on a 38 m high 
statue) are quite acceptable. 
Our work on the Small Buddha is not finished yet. We still see 
some room for improvement, in particular by manually 
digitizing the contours (so far we applied an automatic line 
following algorithm) in the problematic regions, and by using 
other old images which give information on the now hidden and 
thus missing parts (lower legs, feet and other small model 
sections). 
As described, this image- and model-based reconstruction 
resulted in a sequence of quite complicated procedures. But the 
result of this work, a digital, textured 3D model justifies the 
efforts. It shows the capabilities of advanced digital 
photogrammetric techniques, whose products can not only be 
used for digital representations, but also for physical 
reconstructions of the situation before the demolition of the 
objects of interest. 
This work should be considered as a contribution to 
documentation, restoration and protection of cultural heritage 
objects, and therefore serves to maintain the knowledge about 
culture and history for the coming generations. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The authors thank Dr. Fabio Remondino for the support he gave 
at various stages of the project, Natalia Vassilieva for the 
manual measurements of the stereo images and Hans Werner 
Mohm for providing the images of the dataset B. We are also 
very grateful to Prof. Minoru Inaba, University of Kyoto, who 
provided us with the contour plot. 
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