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Nevis Digital Twin: Photogrammetry and Immersive Visualization of Historical Sites

Alex Apffel, Huy Tran, Vuthea Chheang

Abstract

In this work, we present a multimodal data acquisition workflow for the digital preservation and virtual reconstruction of at-risk historical sites in the island of Nevis. Facing threats from coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and aggressive vegetation, the archaeological heritage of Nevis requires documentation strategies that bridge the gap between high-cost professional surveying and consumer accessibility. Experimental test compared acquisition variables, specifically camera height (1m vs. 3m) and operator trajectory against high-resolution control data. Moreover, we explore the virtual reconstruction between mesh reconstruction and 3D gaussian splatting to serve as different modalities for documentation. The resulting data is fused into immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, offering a scalable, non-proprietary model for democratizing digital heritage in the Caribbean.

Nevis Digital Twin: Photogrammetry and Immersive Visualization of Historical Sites

Abstract

In this work, we present a multimodal data acquisition workflow for the digital preservation and virtual reconstruction of at-risk historical sites in the island of Nevis. Facing threats from coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and aggressive vegetation, the archaeological heritage of Nevis requires documentation strategies that bridge the gap between high-cost professional surveying and consumer accessibility. Experimental test compared acquisition variables, specifically camera height (1m vs. 3m) and operator trajectory against high-resolution control data. Moreover, we explore the virtual reconstruction between mesh reconstruction and 3D gaussian splatting to serve as different modalities for documentation. The resulting data is fused into immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, offering a scalable, non-proprietary model for democratizing digital heritage in the Caribbean.
Paper Structure (12 sections, 4 figures)

This paper contains 12 sections, 4 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Material and Method
  4. Data Acquisition
  5. Virtual Reconstruction
  6. Mesh Reconstruction
  7. 3D Gaussian Splatting
  8. Virtual Reality (VR) Implementation
  9. Results and Discussion
  10. Effects of various image acquisition parameters
  11. Virtual reconstruction and VR visualization
  12. Conclusion

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: Virtual reconstruction for a well at White's bay in the island of Nevis based on (a) mesh reconstruction and (b) 3D gaussian splatting.
  • Figure 2: Results of 3D gaussian splatting: (a) muti-view 2D images based on camera pose extracted from SfM algorithm, (b) depth view visualizing the distance from the camera for each pixel in the rendered image, (c) accumulation view summing color and density values along a ray to render pixels, and finally (d) the color view showing the final rendering.
  • Figure 3: Effect of camera height using CupixVista: (a) 1‑meter sideways view and (b) 3‑meter sideways view.
  • Figure 4: Real-time VR visualization of the virtual reconstruction with 3D gaussian splatting with a custom rendering pipeline.