Digital Photogrammetry applied to cultural heritage in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean

This course aims to provide participants with the knowledge and skills to use photogrammetry, focusing on the three-dimensional digitization of real estate or built heritage. This technology allows for precise documentation of the property, generating a virtual copy suitable for manipulation for various purposes. By the end of the course, participants will have the skills and knowledge to apply this technique to their heritage assets.

Cultural heritage, with its monuments and sites, is constantly threatened by deterioration or destruction. Therefore, it is essential to adopt ongoing measures for its protection and conservation, using scientific and modern methods whenever possible. The first and most fundamental step in conserving cultural heritage is its documentation, which then informs various actions not only for its protection and conservation but also for its research, intervention, and dissemination.

With the development and rise of digital technologies in recent years, the field of cultural heritage documentation has benefited from improved and newer techniques, such as 3D digitization, which allows for the creation of a virtual replica of almost any object, capturing all its morphological and visual characteristics. 3D digitization contributes to the conservation of historical and archaeological monuments not in a physical sense, but by digitally preserving information about heritage assets (morphology, color, and texture). Currently, one of the most widely used 3D digitization techniques, due to its versatility and low cost, is digital photogrammetry, which has been evolving in recent years, enabling virtual reconstructions using digital photographs and photogrammetric software.