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Digital 3D models become a necessity in management and restoration of monuments. Specialised companies have the appropriate equipment, methodology and experience to digitise monuments in a fast and qualitative way. For archaeologists, restoration experts and site managers, there are however image-based tools that allow them to take on 3D digitisation projects without major investments or having digitising equipment at hand. We describe the practical workflow of digitising a complex castle ruin and how this workflow can be integrated in archaeology, restoration and site management.

The overall 3D model of the castle ruin was made from aerial photography taken by a drone. The inner details of the castle, including the inside spaces and those parts that were not properly visible from the air, were digitised from terrestrial photography. We also show innovative uses of 3DPDF (based upon simplified and retextured 3D models) for exchange of results with the archaeologists, restoration experts and site managers.

We demonstrate how MeshLab as free software has all functionality to create, merge, align and georeference the 3D data, and to simplify and retexture the final results for exchange and presentation purposes, for such a large scale project.

This project shows a low-cost methodology to create a 3D model of a castle ruin for restoration, planning of excavations and site management, based on the open source software tools Arc3D and Meshlab from terrestrial photography and aerial photography by drone. We demonstrate the practical and financial implications of this approach. The digitisation methodology proposed can be easily re-applied to other buildings or sites of interest.

image-based reconstruction, acquisition methodology, open source tools