Hagia Sophia - Photogrammetric Record of a World Cultural Heritage

The Haghia Sophia in Istanbul belongs with its unique dome construction to the outstanding and extraordinary architectural structures in the whole world. Built between 532 and 537 during the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527565), it reflects the sum of all experiences and knowledge of the classical antiquity and it is one of the important monuments of the world heritage. Nowadays the building is under investigation sponsored by UNESCO. New techniques of digital applications in photogrammetry and information sciences open new possibilities for documentation and investigations of such kind of buildings. The Conservation and Restoration Branch of Historical Buildings asked the Photogrammetry Division of the Istanbul Technical University to prepare orthophotos of the Hagia Sophia. Together with the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing of the Vienna University of Technology, it was decided also to create a high quality 3D model of the dome, so that the obtained results can later be also used in an “Hagia-Sophia Information System”. This information system has to collect all information about the building and will be a useful guide for everyone. As one result a 3D photo-model was generated and stored using the data format VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language). This paper describes the measurement process, the generation of the 3D model, the production of the terrestrial orthophotos and the setup of an information system.