Exploiting 2D/3D Geomatics Data for the Management, Promotion, and Valorization of Underground Built Heritage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors present 2D/3D geomatics data for the management, promotion, and valorization of Underground Built Heritage. The study is interesting.  In general, the main conclusions presented in the paper are supported by the figures and supporting text. However, to meet the journal quality standards, the following comments need to be addressed.

 

•           Abstract: Should be improved and extended. The authors talk lot about the problem formulation, but novelty of the proposed model is missing. Also provided the general applicability of their model. Please be specific what are the main quantitative results to attract general audiences.

•           The introduction can be improved. The authors should focus on extending the novelty of the current study. Emphasize should be given in improvement of the  model (in quantitative  sense)  compared to   existing  state-of-the art models.

•           More details about network architecture and complexity of the model should be provided.

•           what about comparison of the result with current state-of-the art models?  Did authors perform ablation study to compare with different models?

•           What are the baseline models and benchmark results? The authors may compared the result with existing models evaluated with datasets

•           Conclusion parts needs to be strengthened.

•           Please provide a fair weakness and limitation of the model, and how it can be improved.

•           Typographical errors: There are several minor grammatical errors and incorrect sentence structures. Please run this through a spell checker.

 

•         

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for the comments and for the valuable suggestions. Our responses can be found in the attached response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Exploiting 2D/3D geomatics data for the management, promotion, and valorization of Underground Built Heritage

 Lucrezia Gorgoglione, Eva Savina Malinverni, Carlos Smaniotto Costa, Roberto Pierdicca and Francesco Di Stefano

 

Abstract

Please structure the abstract as:

Introduction-Aims

Method

Results and interpretation

 

Introduction

Literature review is missing. Please insert

Please develop the literature review and update to 2022

Please analyses critically the findings of the articles and the limitations.

Please indicate also at least tree similar article to your research published recently (last 5 years).

 

Aim of the study is not very clear expressed. Please revise

 

Aim of your study is not very clear expressed

Methodology section

Formula no 1, and 2 line 356 -357: please indicate the source and explain each component represent and measurement unit

References should be revised

Please internationalize and develop the references list

Please complete references:

We consider useful for the paper also the following papers:

Please cite also:

Ilieş Alexandru, Dehoorne Olivier, Ilieş Dorina Camelia, (2012), The cross-border territorial system in Romanian-Ukrainian Carpathian Area. Elements, mechanisms and structures generating premises for an integrated cross-border territorial system with tourist function, in Carpathian Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol 7, no.1, 2012, pp. 27-38; (www.ubm.ro/sites/CJEES)

What is the main question addressed by the research?

The main question addressed is of high importance in big data analysis by presenting accurate real-time data analysis.

The paper not review wide range of articles in this research domain, their advantages and disadvantages etc. This aspect must be revised.

Is it relevant and
interesting?

The paper is relevant especially nowadays in postpandemic period in complex environment of mega cities. It synthetizes the actual available literature data, focus mainly on comprehensive analysis of the integration and roles of laser scan of the main buildings for projection in the  smart cities, a necessary step to achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability for the society

How original is the topic?

Is an actual topic with medium-high degree of originality; but it is important subject especially in the post pandemic period, authors findings confirmed that 2D/3D geomatics data for the management, promotion, and valorization of Underground Built Heritage on smart cities conduct to wellbeing of society, too through tourism etc

What does it add to the subject
area compared with other published material?

The paper is well documented because the authors cited scientific published articles, updated to 2022. The section can be improved

Is the paper well written?

The paper is well written. The quality of English translation is good.

Is the text clear and easy to read?

The text is well structured, clear and easy to read from the specialists in the field but as well as from the persons from public.

Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented?

The conclusions are consistent and underline the idea that the research should be useful and developed in order to promote better quality of life and environment for cities residents, visitors etc.

Best regards

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for the comments and for the valuable suggestions. Our responses can be found in the attached response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper shows the integration of MMS point cloud data of a UBH and its exterior in a GIS. I miss some topological analysis. The surveying seem only for representation & mapping and no analysis and simulations have been run.

I miss to go deeper in technical parts, specially in the geomatics field (algorithms, processes and workflows). That type of information that can replicate the experiment in other place, even with different instrumentation.

I also miss criticism to geomatics methods. You have used two methods (static and kinematic lidar), but no comparison or a priori or posteriori error estimations are shown.

The background and historical part maybe is too extensive in proportion for this scientific paper.

In some reference appear “[Error! Reference source not found.].”, please check them.

Still, please find comments that can improve your paper.

S21 modern 3D metric surveying technologies

This combination of words sound strange. Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them (according to Wikipedia)…

Surveyors work with elements of geodesy, geometry, trigonometry, regression analysis, physics, engineering, metrology, programming languages, and the law. They use equipment, such as total stations, robotic total stations, theodolites, GNSS receivers, retroreflectors, 3D scanners, LiDAR sensors, radios, inclinometer, handheld tablets, optical and digital levels, subsurface locators, drones, GIS, and surveying software.

Surveying is 3D and metric and nowadays, 3DTLS, GIS, MMS, etc are not “modern”. They are over 25, 60, 15 years…

 

S33 The lack of knowledge and documentation of UBH often limits their full exploitation: too often, the planning process do not consider the “underground” due to its “invisibility”

Please explain this sentence or provide a reference. I do not understand “lack of knowledge and documentation”. Nowadays, in many countries UBH appear un the municipal cartography, some are a touristic resource such as tomb-chapels, Roman Necropolis, Etruscan metropolises, Roman catacombs and human impact even measured.

Please have a look to publications such as “The Conservation of Subterranean Cultural Heritage” (ISBN 9781138026940) where you will find many knowledge about not only investigation and documentation but exploitation, pathologies, conservation and maintenance as well.

 

S45 Therefore, the concept of interoperability is fundamental to ensure an integral and complete flow of information. However, this concern still remains unresolved. Indeed, one of the trending topics in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) research for CH is the topic of data fusion, for which many researchers have been working on the integration of 2D/3D data and GIS data for several years [Error! Ref-erence source not found.].

Nowadays It is solved. Maybe not with a standard GIS, and simulations with climate, intervisibility and impact of visitors in UCH are run and 3D data is stored and analysed in the scenario. There are many cases in caves such El Castillo, Altamira, tombs such as Djehuty, catacombs, etc.

 

S147 Mapping UBH, from the point of view of the problems of metric data acquisition, presents intrinsic difficulties of the site, i.e., it is conditioned by the complex environmen-tal and construction factors that characterize them, such as poor lighting, narrow and var-iable-height passages, besides articulated routes.

From my viewpoint, this is not a problem of metric data acquisition since al equipment are in tolerance thresholds due to humidity, temperature, maximum/minimum distances, etc. Light generally is noise in measuring and equipment generally works better in darkeness than with direct sun light. Maybe it is not so confortable for some  operator than other scenarios.

 

S161: Surveys on the caves were carried out in 2021 using and comparing two laser scanners in different acquisition modes… static laser scanner…. mobile laser scanner.

Nowadays they are not comparable, it depends in the criteria you priorize in the surveying accuracy & LOD vs time.

If need accuracy and error estimations you still need to combine 3DTLS, traverses, geodetic networks to reach an accuracy that MLS cannot reach. Please have a look to references such us “Control of Laser Scanner Trilateration Networks for Accurate Georeferencing of Caves: Application to El Castillo Cave (Spain)”, https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413526 where this is explained and error estimations performed.

 

S185: Figure 1. Methodological workflow

Please provide more details in the parts of the workflow, explaining in detail which methods you use and how they concatenate to get which products.

I.e. in the previous article there is a workflow of geomatics information from data collection to results.

You can consider also 1D, to include descriptions and texts and 4D to include variation along time if you find it appropriate.

 

S186 3.1 Case study: Lisbon underground, heritage to be valorized

2 pages and a half to introduce the place is to much. Please short it.

 

S 289 3.3 3D surveying techniques: data acquisition and processing

If in the previous figure is not included, please include here a detailed workflow of the process.

Maybe the 3 first paragraphs can be synthetized in one/two by eliminating obvious things.

 

S311 The post-processing procedures and the georeferencing is done automatically by the device as the operator travels along the route

This is key to reduce drifts. Please explain the way you took data, presence of control points/key elements, and the matching algorithm and accuracy report.

 

S318 Figure 5. a. Technical specifications about MMS Kaarta Stencil 2-16

Chart is difficult to read. Please extract the key elements (IFOV, FOV, range, central wavelength, accuracy @ “x” m, etc) to the text, where the instrument is mentioned (S314)

 

S321: The various environments were previously inspected in order to identify critical ar-eas

Please comment how they affect the settings.

 

S340: Figure 6. Exterior of the Reservatório da Mãe d'Á gua das Amoreiras:

Please include the UBH to see relation with exterior.

 

S354: To merge the acquired scans, the alignment process was performed. Depending on the chosen scale of representation, the allowable error can be determined

 

Please comment the error budget of the system and how drifts where corrected.

 

S374 Nikon D5500 camera

Please include main characteristics (sensor type and size, resolution, pixel size and focal length/s)

 

S375 Nikon KeyMission 360 m

Please include main characteristics (sensor type and size, resolution, pixel size and focal length)

 

Comment to section 3. Please provide details about static 3dtls measurement and potential differences with the static. You mentioned it before but no results are appreciated.

 

S428: metric survey

This is redundant, just survey.

 

S440:LOD2

Why not LOD 3 o LOD 3.5?

 

S462: 3D GIS (Arcscene software).

Please provide reference following the style guide.

 

S482: Figure 11. Data fusion of point clouds and 3D models in 3D GIS  environment:

Data fusion aims at the combined use of data from multiple sensors, rather than analyzing data from each of these sensors individually. In this case two layers are activated, but data is not merged. Please refer to visualization of the two layers.

 

S494: innovative 3D metric surveying technolo-gies, integrated with GIS information systems,

Please refer “innovative 3D metric surveying technologies”, to MMS.

GIS information systems is redundant I is information and S is System. Just call it GIS.

 

S496: hidden heritage

It is underground, but not hidden since it can be accessed.

 

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for the comments and for the valuable suggestions. Our responses can be found in the attached response letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

 

The article has been significantly improved since the previous version. It now better shows certain parts that would make it possible to replicate the experiment elsewhere. Congratulations.

In some references (S59 - S318) still appear “[Error! Reference source not found.].” , please check them.

 

S55 Therefore, the concept of interoperability is fundamental to ensure  an integral and complete flow of information. However, this concern still remains unre-56 solved. Indeed, one of the trending topics in Information and Communication Technologies) research for CH is the topic of data integration, for which many researchers have been working on the combination of 2D/3D data and GIS data for several years [Error! Reference source not found.].

The idea is not to generate a debate, but to transmit to you the work already being done in underground cultural heritage. Nowadays many UCH integrate different information systems without loss of information. Some caves such as Altamira or El Castillo in Spain and others in France, not only integrate data from UAV, 3DTLS and GPR to model the reality (modelling the karst), but different historic scenarios derived from archaeology research (5D in BIM) as well to estimate values and ask "What If?" questions (6D in BIM). They integrate parameters from sensor data on CO2, humidity, air temperature, rock temperature, infiltration water analysis, micro-organisms, radon contamination, etc to run climate simulations, measure the potential impact of visitors and assess the sustainability of the UCH (7D in BIM) and use all this information to the maintenance of the UCH.

In the book I commented “The Conservation of Subterranean Cultural Heritage” (ISBN 9781138026940) you can find how some world UCH was in terms of exploitation, pathologies, conservation and maintenance years ago. It is a good reference to have a general view and can provide some information to your paper. Please have a look to it and/or their papers.

Please look further into the state of the art, as there are already some UCH that integrate data from different sources and produce complex simulations such as climate simulations, karst modelling, etc.

The previous I commented use to be run in 3D engines (usual GIS is 2.5D) beyond Sketchup or Cloud compare as Blender (for existing infrastructure modelling, data integration, some basic analysis and management), videogame engines to display it (such as unity and unreal), flow simulation softwares in Matlab, R, etc for calculations), etc.

 

S197: Regarding the 3D modelling of underground context spaces, if the survey area is limited and static geomatic sensors such as 3DTLS are used, the final model will present a high level of accuracy [26,27].

Please have a look to the paper “Control of Laser Scanner Trilateration Networks for Accurate Georeferencing of Caves: Application to El Castillo Cave (Spain)”, https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413526 where this is in depth explained and accuracies and error estimations performed and it shows i.e. geomatics integration in a UCH of the previous comment. Please have a look to it.

 

S221: integration of 2D data e 3D models and point clouds.

Please correct "e"

 

S396 Figure 6:

Image is good, but too dark, please increase the intensity/lightness to appreciate it better.

 

S442 - S467: Figure 10

There are two Figure 10. Please correct it.

Author Response

Thank you for your further comments. Please refer to the attached file for the authors' answers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf