Building Cultural Heritage Resilience through Remote Sensing: An Integrated Approach Using Multi-Temporal Site Monitoring, Datafication, and Web-GL Visualization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is extremely well written, with adequate and complete references. My major concern is that the rationale given for the project heavily emphasizes preparation for fires, earthquakes, and other disasters. And there are statements that this work will provide guidance for mitigation of destructive events, and lay the groundwork for new plans that will make everything better. Unfortunately, what is demonstrated is a wonderful method to document existing condition of infrastructure, and demonstration of change with time of building condition. These will be of use to evaluate damage after an event, but provides no pathway for advanced planning. The introductory material should be dramatically toned down, and not lead the reader astray on false promises.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Dear Reviewer 1,

 

My co-authors and I are glad that you liked the article, provided positive feedback on the references cited, and reviewed the proposed methodology positively.  We appreciate your revision suggestions and made major changes to the new version of the article accordingly. Please find below a list of revisions made:

 

Point 1. The manuscript is extremely well written, with adequate and complete references. My major concern is that the rationale given for the project heavily emphasizes preparation for fires, earthquakes, and other disasters. And there are statements that this work will provide guidance for mitigation of destructive events, and lay the groundwork for new plans that will make everything better. Unfortunately, what is demonstrated is a wonderful method to document existing condition of infrastructure, and demonstration of change with time of building condition. These will be of use to evaluate damage after an event, but provides no pathway for advanced planning. The introductory material should be dramatically toned down, and not lead the reader astray on false promises.

 

Response 1.  We made major revisions to section 1. Introduction, 2. Materials & Methods, and 4. Discussion to address your main concern and explain that the proposed techniques were not used in the study for mitigation or structure hardening. Instead, they were applied more broadly to improve the understanding of the cultural significance of specific structures or areas (Standard Mill Complex or Roseklip Mill Complex) and prioritize their protection in the event of a disturbance.

 

Specifically, we made major edits in the following sections:

 

1. Introduction (lines 81-93): we added a new paragraph to explain that our remote sensing methodology is not only valuable to document built heritage and produce curated data collections and visualizations, but it is also invaluable to proactively assess ignition risk, monitor structural integrity, and prioritize future treatments. Our experience at Bodie during the 2013 Spring Peak Fire proved that prioritizing structures to threat during a fire disturbance is key to their protection. We believe the proposed methodology enhances traditional documentation, monitoring, and site management practices by integrating remote sensing as a pathway to advance planning and applying mitigation measures. The revised Introduction recommends that site managers employ remote sensing to obtain nuanced baseline 3D and geospatial data to understand conditions better, prioritize treatments, and create priority lists of buildings before disturbance.

 

2.1 Study Objectives: minor corrections made to the list of sub-goals.

 

2.2.1. Dry climate and fire (lines 225-243): A new paragraph (lines 225-234) was added to explain the complexity for site managers to prioritize in a timely fashion which cultural resources to protect actively during a wildfire. We explained that the selection process could be more discernable if the remote sensing tools discussed in our study would be used to create a prior understanding of how individual resources contribute to the property's significance and advanced information about the site and environmental conditions. We reiterated here that our methodology could enhance the acquisition and processing of this important intelligence before the urgency to respond to a fast-moving wildfire. We ended this paragraph by expanding on how California State Parks used the proposed methodology.

 

Lines 248-265 were deleted to make the section clearer and not lead the reader astray, as you suggested.

 

2.2.2 (lines 293-303): a new paragraph was added to expand on how the proposed techniques are relevant to building resilience at Bodie using remote  sensing and advanced recognition of structural weaknesses

 

2.2.3 (lines 310-330): this entire sub-heading was deleted to address your comments and keep the paper more focused on the work we did on buildings at Bodie in 2015-2020 and avoid providing readers with information on monitoring physical hazards and biohazards that was not fully implemented in our results

 

4. Discussion (lines 701-708): an entire paragraph was deleted from this section to tone down our claims, as you suggested.

 

5. Conclusion (lines 739-757): a new section of about 240 words was added at the end of the paper, as the Special Issue's editors suggested. The Conclusion clarifies why we engaged with the study and used remote sensing to protect at-risk cultural resources. We believe the Conclusion explains better that the methodology presented in our article can provide a means to collect and process data in a way that delivers comprehensive information to resource managers so they can quickly identify changing conditions and apply appropriate treatments before disturbance occurs. Additionally, this section makes a call to action for site managers to use the proposed remote sensing methodology to help address new challenges brought to the fore by the current global climate crisis.

 

Abstract (lines 30-32): final sentence revised to reflect all other major changes.

 

Response 2. We noticed we misused the term structure from motion. Thus we changed all the terminology referring to the close-range photogrammetric technique used for image-based modeling across the entire paper.

 

Response 3. We added few more references to improve the Introduction and the Employed Data Capture Techniques sections as follows:

 

Williams et al. 2021 – added as reference [6]. This recent article was published on Science as a milestone paper discussing emerging megadrought in North America;

 

Remondino & El-Hakimi 2006 – added as reference [69] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

 

Szelinsky 2011 – added as reference [70] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

 

Quan 2010 – added as reference [71] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

 

Campiani et al. 2021 – added as reference  [75], to improve our discussion of laser scanning as a technique to document ancient architecture and archaeology for analysis purposes.

 

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We hope the major revisions completed satisfy your request for edits. Please let us know if anything else needs to be changed.

Best regards,

Nicola Lercari

Reviewer 2 Report

In this thought-provoking paper NLercari  et al. summarised their five-year experiment  using multiple visualization techniques to help 
preserve cultural resources in California. The topic is of great importance and the experiment was well designed and the paper was 
well organized. This paper should be accepted. 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Dear Reviewer 2,

My co-authors and I are glad that you provided positive feedback on the proposed methodology and recommended the paper for publication. We also acknowledge that you also suggested that the paper can be improved. Accordingly, we made several changes listed below:

 

Response 1.  We made major revisions to section 1. Introduction, 2. Materials & Methods, and 4. Discussion to address your main concern and explain that the proposed techniques were not used in the study for mitigation or structure hardening. Instead, they were applied more broadly to improve the understanding of the cultural significance of specific structures or areas (Standard Mill Complex or Roseklip Mill Complex) and prioritize their protection in the event of a disturbance.

We added a new section Conclusion (lines 739-757), to clarify why we engaged with the study and used remote sensing to protect at-risk cultural resources. We believe the Conclusion explains better that the methodology presented in our article can provide a means to collect and process data in a way that delivers comprehensive information to resource managers so they can quickly identify changing conditions and apply appropriate treatments before disturbance occurs. Additionally, this section makes a call to action for site managers to use the proposed remote sensing methodology to help address new challenges brought to the fore by the current global climate crisis.

Response 2. We noticed we misused the term structure from motion. Thus we changed all the terminology referring to the close-range photogrammetric technique used for image-based modeling across the entire paper.

 

Response 3. We added few more references to improve the Introduction and the Employed Data Capture Techniques sections as follows:

 Williams et al. 2021 – added as reference [6]. This recent article was published on Science as a milestone paper discussing emerging megadrought in North America;

 

Remondino & El-Hakimi 2006 – added as reference [69] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

Szelinsky 2011 – added as reference [70] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

Quan 2010 – added as reference [71] to improve our discussion of close-range photogrammetry and reference to image-based modeling pipeline

 

Campiani et al. 2021 – added as reference  [75], to improve our discussion of laser scanning as a technique to document ancient architecture and archaeology for analysis purposes.

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We hope the revisions completed satisfy your request for edits. Please let us know if anything else needs to be changed.

 

Best regards,

Nicola Lercari

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

You have written an excellent article, it is well structured and written in a well understandable language.

The topic is extremely up-to-date and exciting, it shows perfectly the necessity of large-scale documentation work for a long-term preservation concept.

I only noticed one typo:
Line 160: main[47] => main [47]

 

The paper often uses SfM to denote the whole image-based modelling process. Image-based modelling consists of all possible passive and active approaches that use images to extract 3D surface geometry.

1) Remondino, F., El-Hakim, S., 2006. Image-based 3D Modelling: A Review. The Photogrammetric Record 21 (115), 269–291. DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-9730.2006.00383.

2) Szeliski, R., 2011. Computer vision: Algorithms and applications. Texts in Computer Science. Springer, New York, 812 pp.

3) Quan, L., 2010. Image-based modeling. Springer, New York, xviii, 251.

SfM is only a method to automatically establish images' interior and exterior orientation with a sparse point cloud as a by-product (see also reference 2 and 3). As such, SfM approaches do not generate any dense 3D geometry. Most of the software packages that incorporate an SfM approach complement it with a dense Multi-View Stereo (MVS) algorithm to compute dense surface geometry (a dense point cloud or surface mesh) from the oriented images. Without this dense matching approach, no detailed 3D geometry would ever be computed.

I would, therefore, urge you to use the more accurate ‘image-based modelling’ expression or resort to ‘an SfM and MVS-based pipeline’.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

My co-authors and I are glad to hear that you liked the article and reviewed the proposed methodology positively.  We appreciate your suggestions and revised the article accordingly. Please find below a list of revisions made:

Point 1. I only noticed one typo: Line 160: main[47] => main [47]

Response 1.  Line 160: missing space typo fixed.

Point 2. The paper often uses SfM to denote the whole image-based modelling process. Image-based modelling consists of all possible passive and active approaches that use images to extract 3D surface geometry.

1) Remondino, F., El-Hakim, S., 2006. Image-based 3D Modelling: A Review. The Photogrammetric Record 21 (115), 269–291. DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-9730.2006.00383.

2) Szeliski, R., 2011. Computer vision: Algorithms and applications. Texts in Computer Science. Springer, New York, 812 pp.

3) Quan, L., 2010. Image-based modeling. Springer, New York, xviii, 251.

SfM is only a method to automatically establish images' interior and exterior orientation with a sparse point cloud as a by-product (see also reference 2 and 3). As such, SfM approaches do not generate any dense 3D geometry. Most of the software packages that incorporate an SfM approach complement it with a dense Multi-View Stereo (MVS) algorithm to compute dense surface geometry (a dense point cloud or surface mesh) from the oriented images. Without this dense matching approach, no detailed 3D geometry would ever be computed.

I would, therefore, urge you to use the more accurate ‘image-based modelling’ expression or resort to ‘an SfM and MVS-based pipeline’.

 

Response 2. We acknowledge that we misused the term structure from motion. Accordingly, we changed all the terminology referring to the close-range photogrammetric technique used for image-based modeling across the entire paper. Additionally, we added the references on image-based modeling you kindly suggested to section 2.3. Employed Data Capture Techniques as follows:

Remondino & El-Hakimi 2006 – added as reference [69]

Szelinsky 2011 – added as reference [70]

Quan 2010 – added as reference [71]

Lastly, we added two additional references: Williams et al. 2021 [6], published on Science as a milestone paper discussing emerging megadrought in North America, and Campiani et al. 2021  [75], which is our most recent publication on laser scanning and ancient architecture documentation.

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We hope the revisions completed satisfy your request for edits. Please let us know if anything else needs to be changed.

 

Best regards,

 

Nicola Lercari

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

good response to reviewers