In the last years, with the large growth of new state-of-the-art technologies used in the field of cultural heritage, it's increasingly necessary to promote non-invasive and non-destructive techniques which are "sensitive" to the nature of the site in which they are applied, respecting the Italian historical artistic heritage. Within the COBRA project [1], ENEA developed a new low-cost and non-destructive survey technique by 3D Photogrammetric reconstruction, using the Structure from Motion (SfM) method, for innovative applications in the field of cultural heritage [2]. This paper shows an application of this methodology on the archaeological complex of Priscilla's Catacombs in Rome. Three case studies have been identified, with several design purposes, showing the different applications of this technique: a sarcophagus called "Sarcofago delle Muse" , a chapel named "Cappella Greca" and a masonry element, which are all situated in the "Criptoportico" area.

Starting from the geometric genesis of simple and complex vaulted systems, the paper proposes a workflow developing an algorithmic model for the construction of 3D digital surface model of some vaulted systems. The writing of an algorithm allows us to obtain pavilion and cross vaults digital surface models. To test the effectiveness of the models obtained in the application of the algorithms to real case studies, the ongoing phase of the research involved the survey of some complex vaulted systems based on Light Detection And Raging (LiDAR) and Structure from Motion (SfM) techniques. The models obtained by entering the data derived from the survey in the algorithm, allow a comparison between the model derived from dense matching techniques and the algorithmic model. In particular, the results obtained from the analysis of a cross vault system present in a side gothic chapel of the church of Santa Lucia in Cagliari are presented.

We have continued research on 3D shapes measurement system using spatial modulator. The advantages of this system are non-contact, non-invasive, and short time measurement. We proposed a method using differentiation to expand the measurable area and improve the accuracy of measurement. Additionally, We proposed to eliminate the influence of marking on target object surface. It was a very practical and effective method.

Optical microscopy enables the observation of highly magnified objects and material structures on micro surfaces, however with the weakness that it can only acquire 2D images. In order to observe the areal features more accurately and intuitively, 3D surface micro topography recovery is applied to form a 3D surface model of an object from its 2D image sequence. Optical microscope has a limited depth of focus in large magnification, which makes the area within the depth of focus cleared and other area blurred. So this paper firstly acquires image sequence which obtains all useful information in one view by vertical scanning of the microscope. Secondly, each image is calculated by an appropriate focus measure operator to find the maximum focus measure value and form a 2D fused image. Then the maximum value of each pixel is accurately transferred into a distance value, forming a discrete depth map. After conducting interpolation, fitting and color mapping, a smooth and authentic 3D color model of the measured surface is obtained. Various focus measure operators such as grey level variance are used to compare their performances in 3D model recovery. The superiority of the modified Laplacian operator proposed in this paper is proved by experimenting on measured objects with different micro topography features such as ditch shaped and slope shaped structure. In addition, surface roughness information of R_a and R_z is extracted from the formed 3D models.

One of the great difficulties to day in quality control and metrological highly fidelity characterisations is the case of soft and easy deformable surfaces like living bodies with history of morphology recorded (originally vegetal, animal, humane, etc) and “memory” materials like papers, human skin, varnishes, leathers, textiles, and others. one of the authors are involved since 1970’s with 3d roughness metrology, sensors, scanning components and driving systems, tactile, capacitive pneumatically assisted and optical measurement techniques. Dealing with surface texture characterisations and efforts of theirs standardisations some fundamental results will be presented and analytically evaluated. Dimensional measurements in manufacturing, metrology software and the comparing evaluation, as well as uncertainty, tolerance, testing, calibration and testing methods and total quality management constitutes essential problem. Critical analysis of different methods in domain of 3d texture characterisations is not reported commenting advantages and week points in context of quality control due to limited space in this paper. Some case studies in terms of education will be presented.