Real Time Monitoring of Cultural Heritage through Camera Phone Digital Images

The paper describes the development of a low-cost and rapid technique, for documentation and monitoring of the cultural heritage, with particular regard to emergency management, anomaly detection and early warning. The technique uses images captured and sent by camera phones. An archive, with several images of selected monuments has been set up. For monitoring purposes, or in case of damages, a not specialized photographer should connect to the dedicated website; the image of the selected monument is shown on the display of his camera phone; he is then requested to take a picture with the (almost) same line of sight, and to upload it. The image processing allows to detect the changes and to activate an early warning procedure. The system, the image processing and the results of a test are described.