This week we spent two days surveying the Kaasan Church, in Tallinn, Estonia. This is the first stage of a larger documentation project where laser scanning and photogrammetric surveying will be completed, with the laser scanning being a collaborative project with one of our partner companies, Reaalproject LLC. The end product of the work will be a spatially georeferenced point cloud which will be used for plans and drawings as well 3D modelling and other interactive outputs.

The Kaasan Church was built during the time of Peter the Great (1721) and is the oldest wooden sacral building in Tallinn. On of the aims of the recording is to record the current situation of the building including the structures, interiors and exterior.

The advantage of laser scanning and photogrammetry compared to traditional survey techniques is that the whole building is recorded, not just some points or lines chosen by the surveyor, with measurements being easily extrapolated from the digital model.

The church is quite small but is very complex. The places which are not accessible with the laser scanner we will recorded using a photogrammetric survey. The end result of this will be a point cloud and a meshed model, with the additional benefit of having a high resolution texture for photorealistic visualisations. With both types of recording taking place, the combination of the the data will allow for a precise and accurate representation of the church that will goes beyond any form of recording that has previously taken place.

Archaeovision is focused on technological approaches within cultural heritage documentation and the Kaasan church is one of our few ongoing projects that utilise both laser scanning and photogrammetry within the digital documentation of buildings.