Application of territorial laser scanning in 3d modeling of traditional village: A case study of Fenghuang village in China

Historical villages bear historical, cultural, architectural, aesthetic, and landscape values, but they are facing a series of dangers and problems during the process of urbanization. Digital survey for traditional villages plays a crucial role in the preservation, planning, and development of this kind of heritage. The introduction of the terrestrial laser scanning technique is essential for heritage surveying, mapping, and modeling due to its advantages of noncontact measurement, accurate sensing of complex objects, and efficient operation. In recent years, TLS and related processing software (“SCENE”) have been widely presented as effective techniques for dealing with the management and protection of historical buildings in Fenghuang village. Thus, this paper highlights the process of using laser scanning to obtain architectural data, process point clouds, and compare the characteristics of historical buildings in Fenghuang village. The cloud-to-cloud registration technique is applied to build point clouds. As a result of model construction, some architectural patterns are summarized in this village, such as the spatial sequence of ancestral halls, the dominant position of memorial halls, and the character of building decorations and roof slopes. Furthermore, a BIM model is also explained to fulfill the statistical function for architectural components. In the future, more research can be fulfilled based on the built point cloud model, which will be beneficial for the development of the whole village.