Building a virtual outcrop, extracting geological information from it, and sharing the results in Google Earth via OpenPlot and Photoscan: An example from the Khaviz Anticline (Iran)

Photogrammetry is becoming a highly efficient alternative technique to laser-scanning for creating virtual outcrop models. It is easy to create a 3-dimensional digital model of an outcrop and extract geological information contained in it by using photos taken from different locations and integrating few free and/or cheap software. Subsequently, both the virtual outcrop and the geological data can be easily uploaded into Google Earth for sharing purposes. This is opening a door to the use of virtual outcrops in geology, for both research and teaching, which due to the costs and computers' skill requirements, was