Chapter 37
The Potential of Airborne LiDAR for Detection
of New Archaeological Site in Romania
Ioana Vizireanu and Ra ˘zvan Mateescu
Abstract The introduction of laser scanning has triggered off a revolution in
topographic terrain capturing, especially in the generation of digital terrain models
(DTM) and it is beginning to find success in archaeological survey. To explore its
potential for archaeology, a LiDAR survey covering the Cornești landscape, in the
west part of Romania, was carried out. This paper presents a GIS approach to
discover new characteristics of the archaeological site. First, the DTM of the
surface has been generated in order to produce the local relief model (LRM). A
data processing approach is presented to enhance the visibility of the new site and to
allow their relative elevations as well as their volumes to be measured directly. In
the second part of the paper, a GIS workflow is presented which provides a wellstructured descriptive and analytical tool for identifying spatial patterns. Finally,
the potential of LiDAR to transform our future management of the historic environment will mark the archaeological activities.
Keywords LiDAR • Laser scanning • GIS • Archaeology • LRM
37.1 Introduction
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technique (Jie
and Charles 2009) which enables the obtaining of very accurate data about the
topography of terrain, vegetation or different structures and construction.
According to the experts, this technology uses three basic systems: the laser
scanning that measure distances, the global positioning system (GPS) and inertial
measurement unit (IMU) for orientation recording (Baltavias 1999). The technology involves the use of computers with high storage capacity and computation.
I. Vizireanu (*)
National Institute for Aerospace Research “Elie Carafoli”, Bucharest, Romania
e-mail: vizireanu.ioana@incas.ro
R. Mateescu
National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa”, Constanța,
Romania
e-mail: razvan_doru@yahoo.com
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
C.W. Finkl, C. Makowski (eds.), Diversity in Coastal Marine Sciences, Coastal
Research Library 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57577-3_37
617
The Potential of Airborne LiDAR for Detection
of New Archaeological Site in Romania
Ioana Vizireanu and Ra ˘zvan Mateescu
Abstract The introduction of laser scanning has triggered off a revolution in
topographic terrain capturing, especially in the generation of digital terrain models
(DTM) and it is beginning to find success in archaeological survey. To explore its
potential for archaeology, a LiDAR survey covering the Cornești landscape, in the
west part of Romania, was carried out. This paper presents a GIS approach to
discover new characteristics of the archaeological site. First, the DTM of the
surface has been generated in order to produce the local relief model (LRM). A
data processing approach is presented to enhance the visibility of the new site and to
allow their relative elevations as well as their volumes to be measured directly. In
the second part of the paper, a GIS workflow is presented which provides a wellstructured descriptive and analytical tool for identifying spatial patterns. Finally,
the potential of LiDAR to transform our future management of the historic environment will mark the archaeological activities.
Keywords LiDAR • Laser scanning • GIS • Archaeology • LRM
37.1 Introduction
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technique (Jie
and Charles 2009) which enables the obtaining of very accurate data about the
topography of terrain, vegetation or different structures and construction.
According to the experts, this technology uses three basic systems: the laser
scanning that measure distances, the global positioning system (GPS) and inertial
measurement unit (IMU) for orientation recording (Baltavias 1999). The technology involves the use of computers with high storage capacity and computation.
I. Vizireanu (*)
National Institute for Aerospace Research “Elie Carafoli”, Bucharest, Romania
e-mail: vizireanu.ioana@incas.ro
R. Mateescu
National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa”, Constanța,
Romania
e-mail: razvan_doru@yahoo.com
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
C.W. Finkl, C. Makowski (eds.), Diversity in Coastal Marine Sciences, Coastal
Research Library 23, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57577-3_37
617