Unity 3D / Agisoft / 3DSMax / CloudCompare / MeshLab/ LiDAR data / Photoshop
Scope: Undergraduate Final Year Project
Supervisor: Dr. Murtaza Taj
Project Duration: 11 months
Designated Role: Worked alongside my project partner (Riyam Jawad) in researching the solution scope, rendering 3D objects in Agisoft and 3DS Max, and creating a virtual tour in Unity
The Shatial petroglyphs of the Gilgit-Baltistan area high up in the Himalayas, is an archaeological site that used to be a trade route for Buddhist missionaries, merchants, and pilgrims that would leave 'grafitti' while passing by. These petroglyphs are a long preserved form of history that has recently come under threat of erasure due to the construction of dams in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province. Many regions in the area will soon be submerged underwater including Shatial, an area that holds a great deal of Pakistan’s ancient history.
The project was thus an effort to digitally preserve historical information in the Shatial region after the construction of the dams by creating a 3D virtual tour of the area. In order to do this, the process of photogrammetry was employed to create 3D models of the rocks and these were integrated into a Unity terrain that was created using heightmaps of the area as well as manual enhancement of the terrain itself. For the sake of realism, a first person controller was implemented into the Unity project to allow users to tread through the region and view the region and the rocks up close. A 3D viewer was also integrated into the project and this allows users to click on any rock they wish to see up close in order to better see the details of the 3D rock objects that were created via photogrammetry.
Photogrammetry data through LiDAR scans of the region were provided for our team to work on. This was to be used to render rock models from the photogrammetry data using Agisoft software as the main tool. Our input was photogrammetry data i.e high definition pictures of the rocks from all angles with a 45 degree difference between each subsequent photo used. These photos were input to Agisoft and aligned to be further used as the data from which we would create point clouds.
Photogrammetry data through LiDAR scans of the region were provided for us to work on. This was to be used to render rock models from the photogrammetry data using Agisoft software as the main tool. Our input was photogrammetry data i.e high definition pictures of the rocks from all angles with a 45-degree difference between each subsequent photo used. These photos were input to Agisoft and aligned to be further used as the data from which we would create point clouds.
Images used to create 3d point clouds through Photogrammetry on Agisoft
Final, refined 3d rendering of rock after adding textures
Terrain.party was used to generate a heightmap of Shatial. The 8x8 km heightmap generated did not have enough details and the terrain generated from it in 3DS Max was unnecessarily big. This terrain was appropriately sized but it was still not smooth and had small spikes all over. We used the terrain smoothing brush in unity to fix this.
Height map generated to create a realistically accurate terrain on Unity 3D
Details of rock objects visible when opened in the object viewer on Unity
By creating a realistic 3d first person view on Unity, we were able to achieve most of our desired outcomes. The textures and skyboxes used enhanced the look and feel of the area and gave a better idea of what the site looks like in person. Users had the full ability to navigate through the region created as well as seamlessly use the 3D viewer to explore the detailed inscriptions in the rocks.
This project was a step towards the preservation of the Shatial rock art using photogrammetry and lidar data. It provided us with an integrated view of the site and the rock models in a way that makes both viewing the rock inscriptions as well as exploring the site an interesting sensory experience