Material Studies For Digital Heritage: Comparative Analysis of Geometric and Photometric 3D Representations
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association
Abstract
3D digitisation offers unique opportunities for research, preservation, distribution, presentation, and contextualisation of artefacts in museum and heritage contexts. However, despite advances in the field, no single contemporary capture method or representation can perfectly capture all artefacts for all purposes. For example, heterogenous materials, transparent surfaces, intricate structures, motion, and interactivity all remain significant challenges for contemporary 3D digitisation techniques. From the perspective of digital heritage, we present here an analysis of two prominent techniques: ''structure from motion'' surface-based ''geometric'' representations and surface-free ''photometric'' Gaussian Splat representations. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both with respect to digitisation workflows, usability, integrability, and practicality in museum contexts, with a particular focus on performative artefacts, and propose a goal-oriented guide for digital heritage professionals embarking on digitisation projects.
Description
CCS Concepts: Applied computing → Digital libraries and archives; Arts and humanities; Computing methodologies → Rendering; Shape modeling
@inproceedings{10.2312:dh.20253050,
booktitle = {Digital Heritage},
editor = {Campana, Stefano and Ferdani, Daniele and Graf, Holger and Guidi, Gabriele and Hegarty, Zackary and Pescarin, Sofia and Remondino, Fabio},
title = {{Material Studies For Digital Heritage: Comparative Analysis of Geometric and Photometric 3D Representations}},
author = {Töpfer, Fabian and Christ, Eliane and Yu, Zhongyuan and Engeln, Lars and McGinity, Matthew},
year = {2025},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-277-6},
DOI = {10.2312/dh.20253050}
}