CIPA 2003 XIX 11 ' International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
Defining the limits of the top surface of the upper 
most deposit 
Unique numbering of the top surface and the de 
posit (s004, d004) 
Photographic record 
Measuring ground control points 
Measuring boundary polygon and topography of 
the top surface 
Excavating the deposit, taking samples, measur 
ing find and sample coordinates, describing de 
posit, describing finds 
Unique numbering of the bottom surface (b004) 
Photographic record of the bottom surface 
Measuring ground control points 
Measuring the topography of the bottom surface 
The process of recording of interfaces is as follows: 
Unique numbering of the interface (¡004) 
Photographic record of the bottom surface 
Measuring ground control points 
Measuring the topography of the bottom surface 
Describing the interface 
The stratigraphic relations of the top surface the deposit 
and its bottom surface are trivial. The stratigraphic rela 
tions of any top surface, bottom surface or interface have 
to be observed and recorded. Find and sample records, 
descriptions and stratigraphic relations are recorded on 
pre-printed sheets or directly in a database on site refer 
enced by the unique number of the unit of stratification. 
5. INTERFACING TO THE GIS 
To be able to use the digital photographic record in the 
GIS, it has to be rectified and georeferenced. We had been 
running extensive tests to find a fast and easy way to rectify 
the digital image within an accuracy that would not exceed 
+/- 5 cm. During these tests, we realized, that to stay within 
this range of accuracy, a combination of vertical photo 
graphs and a projective transformation of the image would 
be sufficient in most cases. The use of a projective trans 
formation assumes, that the topography of the surface is 
relatively flat. The plane of the surface is defined by at least 
4 ground control points, which must be well distributed 
around the surface to be recorded. They are measured in 
2D space and define the parameters of the transforma 
tion. 
This simple method of rectification could yield reasonably 
good results as long as the surface has minor differences 
in height or is evenly sloping up (Figure 1). The issue gets 
more problematic, when the topography of the unit of strati 
fication is rough, having large height differences on sev 
eral locations. In this case an accuracy within +/- 5 cm 
cannot be guaranteed. To solve this problem, more con 
trol points have to be added defining smaller plane units 
within the surface, which then are rectified individually. The 
transformed parts are mosaicked together again in GIS. 
Another possibility would be to use software capable of 
differential rectification using a DTM, as we did in our tests. 
So far, the procedure of rectification is done using the soft 
0 025 0.5 0.7S _ 1 125 
Figure 1: Comparison using a stratification unit with 
a height difference of 25 cm within an area of 1 m. 
White lines: visible artefacts drawn from 
photogrammetri'cally produced orthophoto (maxi 
mum error +/- 1.5 cm). 
ware “Monobild” (http://www.geosi.at/produkte/monobild/ 
monobild.htm). It is an easy to use software designed for 
our needs. 
To be able to automatically import and analyse the spatial 
data in ArcView GIS, the extension module ArcDig was pro 
grammed using Avenue, the object oriented programming 
language of ArcView 3.2. The import routine reads the na 
tive ASCII data file format of the geodetic instrument and 
converts the data into the native shape file format of ArcView. 
The measurements of the boundary polygon are stored 
as a 2D polygon shape and as a 3D polyline shape. The 
3D mass points of the surface and optional breaklines are 
imported as points respectively lines. Finds and samples 
are imported as points, where the numbers of the finds 
are automatically added to the database connected with 
the shapefiles. Ground control points are written to ASCII 
text files - one file per unit of stratification. The format is 
fitted to the needs of the import function of the rectification 
software. 
Figure 2: Graphie raw data of stratification unit s059 
in Schwarzenbach after import.