We’ve discussed a few different projects to do this, but this one seems the furthest along. To preserve the Piusa Caverns in south-eastern Estonia, they used a Leica HDS3000 to laser-scan them into a high-resolution point cloud (Shown above), and then process the data through modo to present on a high-resolution touchscreen kiosk in 3D.
The caves are presented as interactive real-time 3D model where visitors can hover around using 32“ touchscreen. Cave walls, sandstone colours and minor details such as inscriptions on the sand wall made by the past visitors are observable in the computer model. Visitors can read additional information about the caverns and can take virtual tour inside the caves.
via 3D Technologies R&D us Leica and modo to scan and model the Piusa Caves – SolidSmack.com.
In real, natural caves the main problem of laser scanning are shadows behind each rock, block or each ledge. Too much work to receive usable data. Human abstraction is a bit better in this case.