BIM Supported Surveying and Imaging Combination for Heritage Conservation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the manuscript is interesting and covers one of the journal's themes.
It is well described and complete in every paragraph. The references are adequate, as are the conclusions.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

I think this topic is quite interesting and important. Using BIM-supported surveying and imaging techniques can be utilized to save the 3D structure of the world heritages. In the present form, I would say that you could improve the presentation and scientific soundness of the paper.  I have some questions and recommendations for this paper.

Recommendations.

1.  Your main title words should initialize with a capital letter.
2.  You could enrich your abstract by adding final results.
3. You can also provide more information on Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). and how it helps the construction of a 3D point cloud. You can use the following source to convey the idea mathematically. ( 1.Zhang, B., Zhang, X., Wei, B., & Qi, C. (2019). A Point Cloud Distortion Removing and Mapping Algorithm based on Lidar and IMU UKF Fusion. 2019 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM). doi:10.1109/aim.2019.8868647   2. Wang, K.; Zhou, J.; Zhang, W.; Zhang, B. Mobile LiDAR Scanning System Combined with Canopy Morphology Extracting Methods for Tree Crown Parameters Evaluation in Orchards. Sensors 2021, 21, 339. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020339 3. Hosseinyalamdary, S.; Balazadegan, Y.; Toth, C. Tracking 3D Moving Objects Based on GPS/IMU Navigation Solution, Laser Scanner Point Cloud, and GIS Data. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2015, 4, 1301-1316. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi4031301 )
4.  Figure 2 is already presented on the Youtube link which you provided, it would be nice if you make another image to present your work.
5. Also, crack detection is presented in Figure 4. It would nice to explain how the software detects and measures the cracks on the wall.
6. You can enrich your presentation by using some tables too.
7. Please check the pdf to fix the minor grammar errors.  

Questions,

1. How did you measure the wall crack size?
2. what is the accuracy of your model?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Please find enclosed a short cover letter with the response to your comments, detailing any changes point-by-point and citing the line numbers.

These changes are clearly highlighted in yellow on the paper,
so that are easily visible to you and editors and can check them expeditiously.

Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The selection of Castle of Torrelobatón as a case study (lines 105-106) should be explained, e.g. what is the objective of the case study, and why is this particular building considered fitting to this objective.

The conclusions should be elaborated further to address how and to which extent the research results have answer to the challenges as described in Chapter 1 (lines 51 to 104).

The discussions (currently Chapter 4) should be positioned after conclusions (currently Chapter 5). In the discussions, the potentials and constraints of generalizing the BIM-supported surveying and imaging method as proposed in the research should be clarified.

English check is needed, and several minor errors should be corrected (such as ‘At the contrary’ should be corrected to ‘On the contrary’ (line 30)).

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Please find enclosed a short cover letter with response to your comments, detailing any changes point-by-point and citing the line numbers.

These changes are clearly highlighted in green on the paper, so that are easily visible to you and editors and can check them expeditiously.

Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The author has supplemented and revised the content of the manuscript as required and solved my question.

Author Response

Thanks a lot for your consideration.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses an interesting issue about the integration of different  products for HBIM (photogrammetric and based on laser scanning point clouds, multispectral and thermographic image, etc.). The subject is currently under investigation and the contribution could be interesting for the field of study. Nevertheless, many methodological and formal aspects need to be explained, clarified, and improved.  Only if the comments are debilitate attended I recommend the article for publication.

The review comments are the following:

1. Authors write “UNESCO digitization and preservation adoptions.” A reference is needed.
2. Details on data acquisition with UAV and laser scanner are not provided.
3. The process to texturize the point clouds with the thermographic and multispectral images must be described because this issue is not always easy due to the distortions and low resolution (high GSD) of the thermographic images. If you do not take adequate references, you may fall into the error of making this texturing in an inaccurate way regardless of the fact that Meshlab allows point cloud texturing. This issue is even more critical when authors aim to monitor specific and little defects such as cracks (difficult to detect on the point cloud).
4. The process followed to reference and scale the photogrammetric point clouds is not clear.
5. Since the model is obtained from two different type of sensors (photogrammetry (passive) and laser scanning (active). What is the procedure to alignment the points clouds from different sensors in a global GRS. What reference elements were used to align the clouds? What is the error of this alignment process and the topographic support a-priori error? Please note that only registration error is reported but it is not clear which type of error it is.
6. European Directive 2014/24/EU must be duly referenced.
7. Conclusion section is very unspecific and does not accurately show the conclusions drawn by the results.
8. Finally, I do not consider the footnote citation to be appropriate. It makes the article less readable. Such explanations should be included in the corpus of the text and/or in the references.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your indications. Please find enclosed point-by-point response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall comments

The manuscript is interesting and covers one of the topics covered by the Journal. The manuscript describes the potential of BIM in the context of cultural heritage from photogrammetric and TLS surveys. One aspect that the authors can best clarify is the transition from point cloud to parametric model, i.e. scan-to-bim process. Therefore, I invite the authors to investigate this methodological aspect further and in experimental research. In the methodological part, the authors could mention some papers in the literature near reference [12-15], such as:

• Andriasyan, M., Moyano, J., Nieto-Julián, J. E., & Antón, D. (2020). From Point Cloud Data to Building Information Modelling: An Automatic Parametric Workflow for Heritage. Remote Sensing, 12(7), 1094.
• Pepe, M., Costantino, D., & Restuccia Garofalo, A. (2020). An Efficient Pipeline to Obtain 3D Model for HBIM and Structural Analysis Purposes from 3D Point Clouds. Applied Sciences, 10(4), 1235.

From the experimental point of view, more details about this process should be provided (may be near the line 156).

Finally, I suggest a visualization within Revit software of the model generated according to the proposed method.

Minor comments

Line 47            Specify CAD acronym

Line 113          I suggest replacing the word "Raw 3D" by "The 3D point cloud"; in addition, I suggest writing better the sentence

Line 115          helical flight? I suggest deleting these words

Line 136          Specify VIS and NIR acronyms

Line 221          I suggest deleting the words “(deduced by trial and error)”

Line 270          I suggest to rewrite the sentence because unclear

Author Response

Thank you very much for your indications. Please find enclosed point-by-point response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Some important aspects remain to be clarified:

In line 134 authors indicate "at least 3 pairs of equivalent identifiable points between datasets". Where are these located and how are these points identified? How many points were they exactly?

How was the trajectory followed by the drone to take the images? I suggest including a figure where the camera positions are shown to better explication of the process. 

Explanations about lens calibration / self-calibration for the photogrammetric reconstruction process are not indicated.

Authors write: "Then 3D data: geometry (XYZ coordinates: shape and volume); colour (RGB coordinates: real appearance);  reflectance (L index: reflectivity -only for 3D laser scanning-) and 2D imaging are readily and  accurately mapped in a raster-based process with minimal distortion under the same spatial reference" What was the protocol followed to be able to ensure the minimal distortion?

Is the point cloud obtained with the laser scanner of the whole model or only of the facade with the crack?  How many stations were used for laser scanner data collection? What reference elements were used to overlap the laser point cloud within the photogrammetric model. What protocol is followed to ensure that the application of the thermographic and multiespectral texture is accurately applied (without distortion and/or perspective anomalies)? It has not been correctly explained.  Nevertheless, all the relevant methodological information contained in the video (line 235) should be explained in the text (or in a complementary material), because the paper is a permanent support, while the Youtube video could be unavailable at any time, so its existence in the future is not guaranteed. 

Author Response

Thanks for your indications to improve the paper. Please find enclosed the file with the answers.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors replied to all of my comments and suggestions. Therefore, I have no further comments. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for helping to improve the article.