MAPPING THE VERTICAL: THE 3 CIME DI LAVAREDO 3D PROJECT (DOLOMITES, NE ITALY)
They feature some of the most beautiful mountain landscapes anywhere, with vertical walls, sheer cliffs and a high density of narrow, deep and long valleys as well as a unique geological environment. This is particularly true for the 3 Cime (Peak) of Lavaredo, often considered the symbol of the Dolomites as they fully rappresent with their shapes and colors the concept itself of this UNESCO's site. The vertical dimension of these and similar mountain complexes are usually unmapped and poorly resolved in a cartographic “nadir dominated” world.
The main goal of this project is the highly detailed 3D surveying of the 3 Cime of Lavaredo, especially the vertical walls, for digital documentation and conservation, geological analysis, tourism and communication purposes, 3D mapping of the climbing ascent, etc. The 3D surveying is based on a fusion terrestrial and oblique helicopter-borne lidar. The later helps both to overcome obviuos limitations on the range of the ground based scanner as the “shadows areas” located especilly at the top of peaks, offering also a time intensive data collection process.
Terrestrial GPS acquisitions are used for alignment and geo-referencing purposes. Aerial (nadir and oblique) and terrestrial high-resolution images are also employed for texture mapping purposes. Several softwares has been tested to process qnd manage the huge cloud datasets (millions of points and hundreds). Results of the realized high-resolution (cm-level) photo-realistic 3D model, troubles are presented and discussed. In geological and geomorphological prespective, once processed the resultant 3D model should provide a unique opportunity inside a geological 3D GIS to extract both discontinuites and stratigraphic info.