Nevis Digital Twin: Photogrammetry and Immersive Visualization of Historical Sites
This work addresses the problem of documenting archaeological heritage threatened by coastal erosion and other factors for heritage professionals and the public in the Caribbean, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing photogrammetry and visualization techniques.
The researchers tackled the digital preservation of at-risk historical sites in Nevis by developing a multimodal data acquisition workflow, resulting in immersive VR environments that offer a scalable, non-proprietary model for democratizing digital heritage in the Caribbean.
In this work, we present a multimodal data acquisition workflow for the digital preservation and virtual reconstruction of at-risk historical sites in the island of Nevis. Facing threats from coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and aggressive vegetation, the archaeological heritage of Nevis requires documentation strategies that bridge the gap between high-cost professional surveying and consumer accessibility. Experimental test compared acquisition variables, specifically camera height (1m vs. 3m) and operator trajectory against high-resolution control data. Moreover, we explore the virtual reconstruction between mesh reconstruction and 3D gaussian splatting to serve as different modalities for documentation. The resulting data is fused into immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, offering a scalable, non-proprietary model for democratizing digital heritage in the Caribbean.