The Bamiyan project: Multi-resolution image-based 3D modeling of cultural heritage

The Bamiyan project of the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Zurich, which started in July 2001, consists in the terrain modeling of the area around and including the valley of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, the 3D reconstruction of the two lost Buddha statues, their actual empty niches, the rock cliff with the Buddhist monks’ caves and the documentation of the UNESCO cultural heritage site with a topographic and tourist information system. Different types of images with different resolutions, ranging from 2.5 m (SPOT-5 satellite images) to a few mm (tourist small format images) have been used. This article describes briefly the photogrammetric 3D modeling of the various objects. The integration of all the recovered information requires powerful software able to handle large amounts of textured 3D data interactively.