Directional Erosion and Weathering Analysis Using Digital 3D Model Surfaces: A Free and Open Add-On for Calculating Recession Amounts with Blender™

Vollständiger Abstract

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Abstract This paper describes a methodology based on a software tool to optimize the analysis of the erosion of historic monuments and to quantify its extent and distribution. It applies to the digital models of monuments, generated either with photogrammetry or Lidar data. The tool is an add-on for Blender™, a popular and free software for 3D editing. Before running it, the user is expected to generate a surface representing the theoretical original surface of the monument, in contact with the areas of the monument not affected by erosion. When this surface is ready, the erosion analysis can be performed. The tool estimates the erosion by measuring the separation between the original surface and the eroded surface of the monument. The result is plotted on the original surface as a distribution of color shades related to the erosion intensity. The numerical results are also exported to a ".csv" file that can be opened in MS Excel for further analysis. This paper also presents the application of this methodology to two case studies affected by two different erosion processes (one anthropogenic and the other natural). The presented results validate and highlight the usefulness of the proposed tool.