A photogrammetric approach to survey floating and semi-submerged objects

The article presents an innovative methodology for the 3D surveying and modeling of floating and semi-submerged objects. Photogrammetry is used for surveying both the underwater and emerged parts of the object and the two surveys are combined together by means of special rigid orientation devices. The proposed methodology is firstly applied to a small pleasure boats (approximately 6 meters long) - hence a free floating case - and then to a large shipwreck (almost 300 meters long) interested by a 52 m long leak at the waterline. The article covers the entire workflow, starting from the camera calibration and data acquisition down to the assessment of the achieved accuracy, the realization of the digital 3D model by means of dense image matching procedures as well as deformation analyses and comparison with the craft original plane.