Digitization of Physical Models of Rural Architecture

Working with objects in digital spatial form is gradually becoming a standard in many fields. In addition to the advantage of easier object manipulation, digital representation can also be used for presentation purposes or better cataloging. In the case of objects from museum collections, it can serve as a basis for restoration or for conducting deeper research into detailed structures. The method of photogrammetry allows 3D modelling of real objects without physical contact with them, while at the same time making use of affordable equipment. However, the disadvantage of this method is the size of the output data (even hundreds of megabytes), which can be a barrier to easy web sharing. This paper presents an efficient workflow for the 3D digitization of smaller physical objects and the subsequent process of generalizing the resulting triangular model to reduce the data volume. Finally, the model generalization is utilized when publishing the model in a web environment to make it available to the widest possible range of users. The whole procedure is applied to a physical model of a cottage from the village of Orlová (Karviná district, Czechia) from the collection of the Czech National Museum (scale reduction of a vernacular building at a scale of approximately 1:20).