Motivation

During the 2008 excavation campaign, archaeologists from the University of Tübingen came across an abundance of wooden beams in the palace well at Qatna, which had fallen into the depths during the destruction of the palace around 1340 BC. The timbers were in their original position and were documented using modern surveying and evaluation techniques. In the processing of the 3D data between 2011 and 2015, the i3mainz included not only the wooden beam collapse but also other elements of the well stratigraphy. For publication and support of interpretation, the institute developed a platform-independent application in 2016, with the help of which the different 3D data are made available via the internet with various analysis tools.

Activities

For a more flexible provision and analysis of the entire 3D data of the fountain project (wooden lintel, wall painting, steps, architecture), i3mainz developed a web-based application that does not require any additional software. The goal was to make large 3D data sets from laser scanning and photogrammetry available with the help of a web server. The user can view and analyze the 3D data with the help of a 3D viewer integrated in the website. The web application thus allows interactive visualization of 3D models via a common internet browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari without plugins and under Windows, Apple or Android. This circumstance allows easy access to the entire 3D dataset by all project participants without saving the large datasets to the client.