Stratigraphic Modeling and 3 D Spatial Analysis Using Photogrammetry and Octree Spatial Decomposition

The destructive nature of archaeological excavation makes the complete documentation of excavated evidence critically important to our ability to evaluate archaeological knowledge claims. Long demanded by textbooks, such complete documentation and publication have only recently become practical through the use of digital spatial technologies. These technologies open an entirely new dimension by making published evidence susceptible to independent re-analyses by the archaeological community. However, conventional stratigraphie recording methods are highly selective, and 2.5D GIS data structures do not support modeling and true 3D spatial analysis of stratigraphie volume solids. This paper presents a stratigraphie recording strategy based on oblique digital photogrammetry that is simple and inexpensive, yet comprehensive and accurate, and discusses approaches to solid modeling and 3D spatial analysis that meet the needs of archaeological stratigraphie analysis. These approaches are implemented in a custom software component under development and will be made available to the archaeological community at nominal cost.

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