SfM digital survey and modelling for the Museum of the sculptures of the Basilica of St. Silvestro, Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome

Abstract: The basilica of St. Silvestro, at the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome is a recent construction, it was built in the early XX Century, but it was constructed over the foundations of a structure developed in different times during the Late Antiquity. It is now at the end of a meaningful restoration. The South-East part of the original building was conceived as a space for burials. Currently this area is used as storage for the archaeological materials found during the excavations of the past century. The new museum of the sculptures will contain 405 pieces of sarcophagi dated between the beginning of the III Century A.D. and the first half of the IV Century A.D. One of the most important pieces in this collection is a well preserved marble sarcophagus, dated around the III Century A.D., engraved with scenes from everyday life, agriculture and sheep-herding. This piece is the object of this paper, quite a challenge for a digital survey, because of the complex characteristics features of the sculptures and it’s fine details. And last but not least due to the difficulties linked to the light subsurface dispersion of the marble. For these reasons the survey was based on the Structure from Motion process, using a digital SLR camera and a specific SfM software. The main advantages of this choice are the reduction of the instrument costs and their practical management: all was done with a good quality camera, a tripod and some studio lights, while a single, middle price, software was used to produce the final digital 3D model. The final results, edited and optimized in different solutions for multimedia presentation and prototyping were soon ready for further use, like the implementation into a multimedia database of the details. (under development).