Multi-source data-based 3D digital preservation of largescale ancient chinese architecture: A case report

The 3D digitalization and documentation of ancient Chinese architecture is challenging because of architectural complexity and structural delicacy. To generate complete and detailed models of this architecture, it is better to acquire, process, and fuse multi-source data instead of single-source data. In this paper, we describe our work on 3D digital preservation of ancient Chinese architecture based on multisource data. We first briefly introduce two surveyed ancient Chinese temples, Foguang Temple and Nanchan Temple. Then, we report the data acquisition equipment we used and the multi-source data we acquired. Finally, we provide an overview of several applications we conducted based on the acquired data, including ground and aerial image fusion, image and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data fusion, and architectural scene surface reconstruction and semantic modeling. We believe that it is necessary to involve multi-source data for the 3D digital preservation of ancient Chinese architecture, and that the work in this paper will serve as a heuristic guideline for the related research communities. Keywords: Ancient Chinese architecture, 3D digital preservation, Multi-source data acquisition, Architectural scene modeling