3D scan for the digital preservation of a historical temple in Taiwan

This study presents the efforts in archiving Chinese architecture using a long-range 3D laser scanner. A historical architecture, the main hall of the Pao-An Temple, was preserved in a digital format with the architectural shapes retrieved more accurate than traditional manual measurements did. The difficulties in measuring as-built free forms and curves up to the size of a building were encountered and solved to enable the display of the hidden inter-relationship between outdoor and indoor profiles through sections. This research identified the most error-prone measurements done by traditional approach by comparing original drawings with the final models which registered 1958 scans and sub-scans. To represent the special characteristics of as-built 3D temple form, the study includes the application of metadata in architecture, the information management of digital data, and the Internet display of large 3D data sets.