projects

Projects

Currently, we are working on a number of new projects in the area of computer graphics (CG). A central aim is to produce high quality CG models for a variety of applications in the Angkor area. In close cooperation with several organizations on site, we investigate new and improved methods to model the local tarrain, several highly detailed CAD constructs and a variety of relicts and artifacts. Date for these projects comes from a number of different thrid party sources as well as from our own expeditions to Cambodia.

Dancing Śiva - a 3D Puzzle

The story of the Koh Ker statue's puzzle is told on ARTE (German/French TV channel) in the video Angkor entdecken / Angkor redécouvert the whole story is told in a 90 min documentary, a film by Frédéric Wilner. Read more ....

Interactive 3D Models of the Koh Ker Statues' Project

In case your browser (e.g. recent versions of Firefox, Chrome) supports WebGL, you can have a closer, interactive look at reduced 3D models of the fragments of the Dancing Śiva.

Use the left mouse for rotation, mouse wheel for zooming, and right mouse for translation.
Have a try here.

Data Acquisition Spring 2013

Project 2013 - Paris.A: Scanning and restitution of Koh Ker statue site

Date: April 2013
Location: Musée Guimet, Paris
Team: Dr. Hubert Mara, Sonja Speck, Christian Seitz
Partner: École française d'Extrême-Orient, EFEO and Musée Guimet

Continuing the Koh Ker statue project initiated with the École française d'Extrême-Orient, EFEO, we also scanned the figures of Uma, wife of Śiva, and a kneeling King, both in the permanent exhibition of Musée Guimet, Paris. Both statues belong to the same temple complex but were located in different chappels. The statue of Uma helps to be able to restitute the five focal statues of Koh Ker. Results

Project 2013 - Paris.B: Molds of bas-reliefs

Date: April 2013
Location: Morangis, near Paris
Team: Dr. Susanne Krömker, Sonja Speck, Christian Seitz
Partner: EFEO and Musée Guimet

The aim of this project is scanning and photogrammetric acquisition of some of the molds which are restored for the exhibition that is currently in preparation at Musée Guimet, Paris. The acquired data than will be compared to those data from today's bas-reliefs on site in Angkor. Results

Project 2013.A: Scanning and restitution of Koh Ker statue site

Date: March 2013
Location: Preah Norodom Sihanuk Museum in Siem Reap
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Dominik Neusser, Chamroeun Khim
Partner: EFEO and APSARA Authority in Siem Reap, Council of Ministers and Ministry of Culture

Since 2011 we initiated with the École française d'Extrême-Orient, EFEO, the "3D Scanning and restitution of Koh Ker statue site in Cambodia" for which we had done 3D data collection of 13 fractures available in the National Museum of Cambodia (NMC) for about two weeks back in 2011. However, to be able to restitute the five focal statues of Koh Ker about triple times of these fractures still require to be scanned in the Preah Norodom Sihanuk Museum (PNSM) in Siem Reap, and some still locating at the site of Koh Ker. In PNSM, 12 large pieces (weight: 20 kg - 150 kg) and approximately 300 small fragments (less than 20 kg) related to Koh Ker projects are available. According to limited time not all pieces will be scanned. Dr. Eric Bourdonneau will make a selection of the pieces with highest priority. Results of Śiva fragments and results of other fragments of the group.

Project 2013.B: Scanning of Inscriptions

Date: February 2013
Location: Conservation Center of Angkor, Siem Reap
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Chamroeun Khim
Partner: Conservation Unit of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts

A PhD research project entitled "3D Image Processing, Analysis, and Software Development of Khmer Inscriptions" conducted by Chamroeun Khim in IWR, Heidelberg University. In this project, Angkorean-period inscriptions stored in the Conservation Center of Angkor (CCA), Center of Siem Reap, are needed for the purpose of training and testing algorithms to analyze Khmer inscriptions. The inscriptions will be selected at the site with respect to some criteria such as surface condition, the style of writing and the languages.

Data Acquisition Autumn 2011

Project 2011.A: Scanning ceramics

Date: August/September 2011
Location: National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Anja Schäfer, Martina Trognitz
Partner: National Museum of Cambodia

3D scanning of ceramic and fractions is one of the main interests of the National Museum of Cambodia (NMC) since 2009, said H.E. HAB Touch, director general of Conservation and Preservation Department (former Head of NMC), Minister of Culture and Fine Arts in Phnom Penh. NMC has been working on ceramic puzzling and restoration in traditional way, which is a very difficult task. With the memorandum of understanding between IWR and the National Museum since 2005 the NMC is keen on starting another collaboration project to apply computational science 3D scanning technology to support reconstruction of ceramic. About two hundreds of selected ceramic fractions can be scanned for experimenting a virtual reassembling of the pieces.

Project 2011.B: Scanning of inscriptions in Conservation Center of Angkor, Siem Reap

Date: September/October 2011
Location: Conservation Center of Angkor, Siem Reap
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Martina Trognitz
Partner: World Monuments Fund

Our main scan object/inscription is the Preah Khan column. It is 60cm x 60cm x 250cm of size. Amongst the other objects of the collection the ministry gives permission to let us scan several other pieces. In order to safely move the inscription for the scans four personnel of the Conservation d'Angkor are ready to support us or manage a truck. Hubert Mara (IWR) will be the key person for the data analysis, scientific methods development and application.

Project 2011.C: Scanning fractions of the Dancing Śiva of Koh Ker

Date: October/November 2011
Location: National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Julia Freudenreich
Partner: École française d'Extrême-Orient, EFEO

Almost all the statues from Koh Ker in the National Museum of Cambodia (NMC) shall be scanned proceeding step by step. In priority, the interest is on the sculptures from the Prasat Kraham (the gopura III East of Prasat Thom in Koh Ker). Among these, the main priority would be the statues of Kali-Camunda and the Dancing Śiva. The latter is very fragmented and it is not possible up to now to know how many pieces are useful to scan. In a very first step, the two pieces of Kali and as many fragments of the Śiva at NMC shall be scanned. Results

Data Acquisition Spring 2010

Project 2010.A: Scanning at the Bas-reliefs

Date: Spring 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Anja Schäfer
Partner: Global Heritage Fund

The Banteay Chhmar features a large selection of bas-reliefs, most of which are largely destructed. These bas-reliefs consist of several stone blocks with rich engravings on one of their sides. The scan of these engravings will evaluate the precision of the scanner on 2.5D structures and the matching between texture and geometry information. The goal in this subproject is to produce data for a virtual reassembly of a part of such a bas-relief.

Project 2010.B: Reconstruction of stone walls

Date: Spring 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Julia Freudenreich
Partner: Global Heritage Fund

Most of the walls of the temple complex at Banteay Chhmar have collapsed, leaving "graveyards" of stone blocks as a complex puzzle for the reconstruction work. The subproject aims for a complete 3D scan of several stone blocks which (by judgement of the local experts) come from the same wall section. The reconstruction of such a wall segment in a virtual puzzle is a future project which should be initiated by this data acquisition. A further question to be answered during the work is the importance of material properties (reflected by the stone color and engravings) to improve the puzzle work.

Project 2010.C: Air survey of an archaeological site

Date: April 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Christian Seitz, Holger Altenbach
Partner: Global Heritage Fund & ZiTi, Heidelberg University

A complete overview map of an archaeological digging site is a valuable tool to plan reconstruction work, catalog findings and determine areas of risk. To produce such a map we employ a mechanical autonomous quadrocopter, equipped with two digital cameras. By covering the complete site with a set of overlapping photos, rectifying and stitching them together, maps of high resolution can be produced in a short time without the need for a manned plane flight. The project tests a new platform for such autonomous flights and determines practical needs of archaeologists in terms of quality, resolution and global mapping.

Project 2010.D: Photogrammetry of Temple towers

Date: April 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Christian Seitz
Partner: Global Heritage Fund

Modeling of large or high temple complexes cannot be performed by the scanning techniques employed in this survey. To produce a first model for towers (up to 20m in height) we plan to use photogrammetric techniques. From a series of overlapping photos of a single tower photogrammetry is able to reconstruct surface models and feature points in a local threedimensional coordinate system. The quality of the reconstrcution, dependent on the complexity of the surface and the resolution of the digital images, must be thoroughly investigated to lead the way for further projects in this area. By modelling smaller structures such as pillars, the interplay of geometry and surface texture in case of largely overlapping images can be investigated.

Project 2010.E: Artifacts in the National Museum

Date: April 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Martina Trognitz
Partner: National Museum, Phnom Penh & Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh

The National Museum, Phnom Penh, is one of the cooperation partners of the Angkor Project Group. Together with students from the Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA), Phnom Penh, we plan to scan several objects and findings located in the National Museum. The focus of this subprojects is on further investigating the quality of the surface and color reconstruction when scanning objects of different surface property (from ceramics to metals and from stone to wood). These scans are a preparation project for a virtual museum to be jointly set up by researchers from Phnom Penh and Heidelberg.

Project 2010.F: The Preah Khan at Angkor

Date: April 2010
Location: Banteay Chhmar
Team: Dr. Pheakday Nguonphan, Martina Trognitz
Partner: World Monuments Fund

The Preah Khan (great sword) temple is one of the largest and most impressive temple complexes in the Angkor region. In the scanning project at Preah Khan we plan to further refine the data model generation for 2.5D surface reliefs and small to mid sized pillars. Three objects in this temple were preselected during a ground survey in December 2009. Together with our project partner we want to produce highly detailed computer models of these objects to prove the quality of the method for daily archaeological work.

Completed Projects

Terrain Visualization

Images taken from satellites are mapped to topographic maps of the area around Angkor in order to build a realistic surrounding for the sites of Khmer heritage. For this purpose, all the different images for this vast area have to be adjusted in angles and colors.

Artifacts and Relicts - a Virtual Exhibition

During the March excursion, many photographs where taken at the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. These photos shall be use as a base for 3D virtual statues using algorithms known as Shape from Shading or photogrammetric tools.

Modular CAD Models

A group of three students actually works on the CAD-realization of the Phnom Bakheng, and an efficient method to integrate AutoCAD formats into Blender 2.4 rendering software. A lighting and texturing due to recently taken photographs shall document the up-to-date appearance of this currently eroding site.