BUILDING 3D PHOTO-TEXTURE MODEL INTEGRATED WITH GIS FOR 
ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION 
F. Karsli ^ *,E. Ayhan a , E. Tunc a 
a KTU, Engineering and Architecture Faculty, Dept, of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey - 
(fkarsli, eayhan, etunc)@ktu.edu.tr 
Commission V, WG II 
KEY WORDS: Cultural Heritage, Digital Photogrammetry, Historical Buildings, GIS 
ABSTRACT: 
Architectural heritage must be conserved by using contemporary approaches. Conserving the historical buildings depend on 
appropriate measurements and data related to their life history. At this stage, digital photogrammetric techniques and GIS 
(Geographical Information System) integration would be one of the best solutions. GIS has a capability to integrate and update 
graphic and non-graphic data according to user inputs. In this paper, 3D model of historical buildings is constituted by using 
photogrammetric techniques, and added to GIS database to carry out querying, updating and analyzing their properties. As a result, 
in this study, an example of photogrammetric and GIS integration has been presented to conserve the historical buildings as a simple 
Architectural Information System (AIS). 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Architectural heritage preservation makes necessary to produce 
an initial technical documentation to be able to establish the 
necessary plans and studies which allow later to develop both 
suitable approaches and criteria for appropriate buildings 
interventions. Every time becomes more necessary the 
application of the most modern methods to carry out some 
technical documents production. (Hernân-Pérez, 2001). 
Documentation of cultural heritage objects is not an end in itself 
but serves as a tool to make information accessible to those 
(research experts or any interested persons) who cannot 
investigate the object itself. Different reasons can be found for 
the necessity of this information transfer: 
• The object is not accessible to interested parties (e.g. rock 
paintings in caves). 
• The object is too large or too complicated to be overlooked 
and it would be too time consuming to execute an own 
investigation. 
• The object (or just a part of it) is visible only for a short 
period of time at its original location (as in archaeological 
excavations or when unearthed during civil engineering 
projects). 
• Persons living far from the object cannot afford to visit it. 
• The object is in danger of slow deterioration 
(environmental factors) or sudden destruction (earthquakes 
and other natural disasters, war and vandalism). 
The last two points must be taken into account in any case, 
additional ones may exist at the same time (Boehler, W., Heinz, 
G„ 1999). 
Contemporary approaches have to be used to carry out the 
documentation procedure. The result of the documentation has 
to include not only the graphical knowledge but also some non- 
graphical information such as objects’ history, conservation 
status and owners. 
Nowadays, to solve with success the necessities mentioned, 
graphic and alphanumeric database is needed, on which all the 
implied professionals in this topic can lean on and make their 
performances. In addition to, the elaboration of some 
architectural surveying, the techniques based on the use of the 
Digital Photogrammetry and GIS allow us not only to edit some 
plans with a high degree of graphic precision and metric 
accuracy, but also to detect all those defects or structural and 
constructive degenerations that cause the minimum 
deformations or alterations in the formal state of the building. 
Also, these technologies highlight on the conventional 
techniques in being an open system that allows the gradual 
incorporation of new applications or studies as these they leave 
applying. As conclusion one can affirm that the digital 
photogrammetry and the GIS provide a group of advantages and 
benefits in the architectural tasks impossible to obtain with such 
an efficiency, velocity and economy by means of other 
procedures. These advantages and benefits are among others: 
• To have a graphic database of quality, on which can work in a 
coordinated way, all the professionals involved in the 
cataloguing and preservation tasks. 
• To provide a basic instruments for the coordination and pursuit 
of the works and carried out studies or to develop. 
• To facilitate the access, manipulation and bring up to date of 
all the information. 
• To reduce the costs, so much in the obtaining of the data, like 
in the later tasks to carry out during the documentation process, 
restoration and preservation. 
• To facilitate the exchange of data between diverse organisms 
and companies whose performances can impact or to influence 
in the environment of the monument (Hernan-Perez, 2001). 
In our project, forming an AIS is aimed with acquisition data by 
Digital Photogrammetric techniques and visualizes it in 3D with 
GIS environments. Different queries on 3D model of object 
have been done by linking graphical and attribute data. Briefly, 
our system has two main components; a digital 
photogrammetric systeip that we constitute a 3D model of the 
architectural object and the data base management system that