The use of stereoscopic images taken from a microdrone for the documentation of heritage - An example from the Tuekta burial mounds in the Russian Altay

To analyse, interpret and manage our cultural heritage it is important to have an accurate and realistic representation of it. Documenting this heritage involves geographic techniques such as photogrammetry, for which a lot of rather expensive and extensive platforms are already in use. However, a microdrone, a recently developed unmanned aerial vehicle platform is a cheaper and easy to handle tool. To test the very limits of the microdrone and its accompanying data-acquisition and data-processing software, we collected data from a remote area in Tuekta, in the Russian Altay Mountains. This paper presents the challenges faced during the whole photogrammetric procedure from planning the flights to producing the final deliverables. Microdrones are subject to weather conditions and site location which affect both the quality of photos and therefore the whole processing procedure. Therefore, once the conditions/restrictions had been identified and taken into account, it was possible to develop good photos. Such photos made it possible to produce accurate final products, like digital elevation models and orthophotos. These accurate deliverables prove the usefulness of such microdrones for documenting heritage at a desolate and difficult site as well as their usability for documenting the majority of our cultural and archaeological heritage. In future, it would be interesting to test a new, bigger and more stable microdrone. Together with software improvements, the whole photogrammetric process should become faster and easier. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.