DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN DOCUMENTING THE CULTURAL HERITAGE REVIEW OF LASER SCANNERS

Cultural heritage is counted as an irreplaceable source of human. This special and unique source is always confronts dangers and threats such as natural disasters. Hence historical buildings may always change and be ruined due to these threats. These cases emphasize on the necessity of precise documenting and recording of cultural heritage. In documentation process of monuments a variety of tools and methods are used. But alongside the human progress and the emergence of new tools in different sciences, the documentation techniques of historical buildings have changed and new digital technologies are used in this field. One of these digital technologies is laser scanner which using it has had a growing trend in recent years. In this paper the need for documenting the cultural heritage and recording them and then digital technologies used in them will be studied. Then considering this point that using each tool has its own principles and it is necessary to recognize them; laser scanner, how to use it, its advantages and disadvantages and limitations will be surveyed. This research aims to inset the usage of laser scanner in documenting the cultural heritage owing to optimum use of it.