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Using photogrammetry for digital headstone etching

Damaged headstone
Damaged headstone that I wanted to recover the engraving for without disturbing

I found a damaged and illegible headstone today and wanted to recover the engraving but did not want to disturb it to try for an etching. Instead I attempted to use photogrammetric techniques to 3D model the tombstone and do a “digital etching” by coloring the model by depth. I used my camera phone and AgiSoft PhotoScan and the results were very successful.

Photogrammetric software
Photogrammetric software showing image alignment and complete 3D model of the area
Cleaned 3D point cloud
Cleaned 3D point cloud of the tombstone extracted from the images
Digital etching
Digital etching result, points are colored by their depth in the model

Rebecca Armour
by weston
on Sketchfab