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started in 2001. 
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s to the global world 
sible to connect and 
ference system. 
2.1.3 The Software: 
e Autodesk: AutoCAD Map 2000 — CAD-program 
combined with 
e  B-B VermCAD - survey program as addon to ACAD 
e  Kubit TachyCAD 2.53 — interface for direct measurements 
into AutoCAD 
2.1.4 The Survey Grid: The inaccessibility of the materials 
produced by the survey department of the Arab Rep. of Yemen 
made it necessary to create a local survey grid as a basis for the 
subsequent excavations. 
Control points for  photogrammetric and  topographic 
measurements were recorded onto the above mentioned grid. 
An absolute height level could be read off benchmarks for road 
constructions near by. 
Survey points set over the whole area of interest served as 
reference points for the aerial photographs as well as for the 
excavation work. These narrow spreaded points will further 
support local  plottings without complex orientation 
measurements. 
Different methods of data collecting were used to that end; they 
ranged from electronic methods to manual ones using folding 
rulers and plumb lines. Manually collected data were then 
digitized and included into the digital documentation. 
In parallel to excavation and documentation work, a surface 
survey of settlements, irrigation constructions and other points 
of archaeological interest in the oasis was conducted. The use of 
a hand-held GPS made it possible to record and plot them 
immediately into the map 1:50.000 based on the WGS71-UTM 
system. 
2.2 Photography 
2.2.1 The Equipment: Digital photogrammetric equipment was 
one of our main concern due to the nature of our work. This 
equipment included cameras such as the "Nikon - Coolpix 990" 
and the "Fuji-FinePix S1 Pro", the latter being an SLR camera 
with the advantage of interchangeable lenses. 
The photographic equipment was extended to include an analog 
"Rolleimetric" and a "Rollei-6006" . 
A hot-air balloon operated by remote control, belonging to the 
Geology Department of the University of Frankfurt, proved to 
be one of the most useful and most spectacular items of the 
equipment. 
The hot-air balloon was used for the coverage of the temple 
mount and the neighbouring important archaeological sites with 
aerial photos. Specially it was used for the documentation of the 
temple and the close range photogrammetry of the flagstones, 
the propyla area and the inner part of the temple structure. 
Steering at a height of 15-20 metres above the temple proved to 
be slightly tricky. 
The above mentioned equipment made the production of both 
terrestrial and aerial photographs possible thus bridging the gap 
between terrestrial and aerial photogrammetry. 
The actual excavation campaigns yielded circa. 5000 terrestrial 
and aerial photographs of Sirwah and the temple. For the 
administration of the photos in a database the software 
FotoWare AS: Fotostation Pro 4.5 was used. 
  
Figure 4: Hot Air Balloon as camera carrier 
2.2.2 Digital Photogrammetric Recordings: One task of the 
project was to find out, whether the documentation with digital 
photogrammetry during the field works could be rationalised. 
For the photogrammetric recordings the following equipment 
was used: 
Fuji Fine Pix S1 Pro in combination with 
Nikon Nikkor AF 1:2.8D 14 mm 
Nikon Nikkor AF 1:2.8D 20 mm 
Nikon Nikkor AF 1:2.8D 60 mm 
Tamron Aspherical 28 - 200 mm 
Tamron Aspherical 24 - 70 mm 
To avoid damages on the lens surface each lens has its own 
fixed installed UV-filter. The above mentioned focus/aperture 
combination was used for all images to optimise the necessary 
calibration procedures. 
The Fuji Finepix S1 Pro Digital Camera based on the Nikon 
F60 Body, a body from the lower consumer market segment. 
This body does not offer a very high photographic standard, but 
in practice it was still sufficient. 
Tests carried out before pointed out that image registration with 
a resolution of 2304*1536 pixel was absolute sufficient for the 
terrestrial photos. A higher image resolution, the sharpness 
filtering and the colour correction is accomplished optional 
through the integrated processor at clearly extended time for the 
storage of the image data. This procedure can be carried out in a 
better controlled way by external image processing software. 
An image is stored as an Exif-Tiff-File of approx. 8 Mbyte size. 
An IBM Microdisc with a capacity of one Gbyte was used so 
that an amount of some 90 images could be stored. 
First of all, the photos were carried out with one of the two 
wide-angle lenses according to object size and possible shooting 
distance. Due to the recommended sensor sensitiveness of 400 
ASA and due to the good lighting conditions the pictures could 
be taken freehand. With these photos and with a selfcalibrating 
triangulation the objects could be registered for the extraction of 
geometric information. 
In a second run the object was photographed with one of the 
narrow angle lenses either with the Nikon 60 mm or with the 
Tamron, in this case with any, but fixed focal lenght, mostly 
something between 100 and 200 mm. These photos are 
supposed to be employed for the production of high-resolution 
image maps if the resolution of the wide-angle images is not 
sufficient. 
—375—