Rivoluzione digitale e patrimonio culturale subacqueo: approcci, metodologie e riflessioni teoriche sul rilievo fotogrammetrico e la visualizzazione tridimensionale in archeologia subacquea

Contemporary archaeology confronts with many issues relating to broader societal challenges. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a relevant role within this confrontation. Understanding the role and effects of ICTs in society is still in the process and so is for archaeology. The relation between archaeological thought and computer technologies has witnessed a preliminary and strong commitment of archaeologist to computer’s potentials as part of the positivistic strand of the New Archaeology, going through to the acquisition of the GIS and virtual reality potentials since the 1980s. The data enriching environment of post-processual archaeology and the increasing development in computers power and means, have brought to the fore issues of data archiving, management, retrieval, sharing and access. The digital environment requires an ever increasing amount of space for the ever increasing amount of digitally-born data to be preserved and shared. The present dissertation aims to analyze the digital world of archaeology and, particularly, photogrammetry applied to the survey and recording of underwater cultural heritage, with an eye on theoretical and methodological aspects that affect the way photogrammetry and 3D models enter the process of archaeological interpretation. Photogrammetry and the resulting three-dimensional models are useful in the interpretation process as part of a larger digital framework for the analysis of spatial data in underwater archaeology.