Evaluating the Impact of Lighting Conditions on Photogrammetric Acquisition of Cultural Heritage
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association
Abstract
Accurate documentation of cultural heritage artifacts is essential for study, conservation, and exhibition. While optimal lighting is known to minimize photogrammetric uncertainty, the quantitative impact of progressively deteriorating illumination, when compensated by ISO adjustments, remains underexplored. This study experimentally evaluates how varying ISO levels affect the geometric accuracy of dense 3D point clouds generated through Structure from Motion / Image Matching (SfM/IM). A sandstone sample, previously digitized with a high accuracy structured light scanner, served as the reference model. Three cameras of different generations were tested in a controlled darkroom, with lighting progressively reduced and exposure adjusted to maintain correct image brightness. Results reveal an unexpectedly stable measurement uncertainty across a wide ISO range (ISO 100-51,200 for the Sony α7R IV, ISO 100-6,400 for the Nikon D810, and ISO 100- 3,200 for the Canon EOS 4000D), followed by a sharp accuracy drop at the highest ISO setting of each device. While geometric accuracy remained largely unaffected within these ranges, tie point counts decreased and reprojection errors increased steadily with ISO, indicating a gradual loss of feature robustness. These findings show that modern sensors can sustain high-accuracy photogrammetry far beyond traditionally accepted ISO limits, offering practical tolerance thresholds for reliable heritage documentation under challenging lighting conditions.
Description
@inproceedings{10.2312:dh.20253128,
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 = {{Evaluating the Impact of Lighting Conditions on Photogrammetric Acquisition of Cultural Heritage}},
author = {Gangi, Federico and Shafqat, Malik Umair and Guidi, Gabriele},
year = {2025},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-277-6},
DOI = {10.2312/dh.20253128}
}