Integrated surveying techniques for sensitive areas: San Felice sul Panaro

The last few years have marked an exponential growth in the use of electronic and computing technologies that opened new possibilities and new scenarios in the Geomatic field. This evolution of tools and methods has led to new ways of approaching survey. For what concerns architecture, the new tools for survey acquisition and 3D modelling allow the representation of an object through a digital model, combining the visual potentials of images, normally used for documentation, with the precision of a metric survey. This research focuses on the application of these new technologies and methodologies on sensitive areas, such as portions of the cities affected by earthquakes. In this field the survey is intended to provide a useful support for other structural analysis, in conservation as well as for restoration studies. However, survey in architecture is still a very complex operation both from a methodological and a practical point of view: it requires a critical interpretation of the artefacts and a deep knowledge of the existing techniques and technologies, which often are very different but need to be integrated within a single general framework. This paper describes the first results of the survey conducted on the church of San Geminiano in San Felice sul Panaro (Modena). Here, different tools and methods were used, in order to create a new system that integrates the most recent and cutting-edge technologies in the Geomatic field. The methodologies used were laser scanning, UAV photogrammetry and topography for the definition of the reference system. The present work will focus on the data acquisition and processing whit these techniques and their integration