Historical sites bring their own challenges for scientists and preservationalists. At Digital Heritage 2025, Mosaic presented a unique solution.
Autumn means school is back in session and industry conferences are in full swing. The Mosaic team has been incredibly busy running to their usual circuit of public works, construction, and engineering conferences.
However, a few weeks ago, Mosaic shook things up by attending Digital Heritage 2025. This event primarily focused on “documenting, conserving, and sharing heritage” for important cultural artifacts, including buildings, landscapes, and intangible elements such as traditions and languages.
This was the first time Mosaic presented at a conference dedicated entirely to digital cultural heritage. For Lynn Puzzo, Director of Sales and Marketing, it showed considerable potential.
“This was the first time that Mosaic exhibited at a more humanities-based event. It was eye-opening to see the potential for 360° capture outside of the traditional mapping and geospatial industries. I got to see people I’ve met at previous events, as well as some new faces. Meeting passionate individuals who are using cutting-edge technology to preserve our cultures was especially exciting.” – Lynn Puzzo
Jeffrey shows interested attendees the Mosaic Xplor, our latest “capture anywhere” backpack camera with LiDAR.
Historical preservation is going digital
As a lot of the aspects of our physical world have become digital, historical preservation efforts are just the next step in the process. What was once limited to stone, canvas, and paper archives is increasingly moving to digital technologies.
LiDAR is changing the way we approach historical preservation processes. As a hardware company focused mainly on utility inspections and asset management, we spend a lot of time looking at utility poles and roadways. But some of the more creative (and colorful!) parts of our work deal with cultural sites.
It is a rapidly growing industry, and we are excited to be at the forefront of the technology that makes the process faster, cheaper, and more accessible. To quote our CEO, Jeffrey Martin:
“While Mosaic mostly focuses on the geospatial industries, we are keenly aware of the power of state-of-the-art 3D scanning for the documentation and analysis of historical sites. To be more blunt, despite making most of our money from customers scanning utility poles and cracks in the road, we love scanning old stuff!”
The most popular methods include high-resolution imagery and 3D scanning to build immersive online environments. One use case for this is virtual reality (VR) headsets, so visitors can step into different places and times, even into worlds that are centuries old.
Examine structures from near and far with 3D reconstructions. In this example, high-resolution imagery and LiDAR bring downtown Prague to life on screen.
Another growing example is using Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) to turn imagery from a scene into 3D renderings. It is now even possible to take reliable measurements and geometry from 3DGS as well, both concepts that several attendees of the congress questioned.
The move within historical preservation from physical to digital is groundbreaking for its financial, political, and educational potential.
Producing revenue
The question of money has always been central to preservation efforts. We tend to assume arts and humanities projects cannot produce a big enough ROI to justify costs. In the past, the survival of cultural landmarks and artifacts often depended on wealthy patrons, religious institutions, or state-funded cultural agencies.
The 20th century saw an unprecedented rise in tourism that coincided with improved transportation technology. Flights became commercially available, and a growing middle class was itching to see the world. The fervor for travel has only increased in the coming decades, and tourism is now a major industry in most countries.
Private–public partnerships are investing together in technologies that safeguard monuments while making them accessible to new audiences. Tourism continues to be a key driver, as digital preservation both supports on-site visits and generates virtual experiences that broaden revenue streams.
Democratizing access
Expanding historical preservation from the physical dimension into the digital world broadens our access to distant cultural monuments. For those without the means to travel, the world becomes a few clicks away.
In cases of geography, conflict, and the fragility of a historical site, digital access is incredibly important. When it’s impractical or dangerous to visit a site multiple times, 3D rendering technology is a game-changer. Some sites are also too fragile to allow thousands of visitors a day to trample through them.
Virtual reality tours, photogrammetric models, and interactive archives make it possible to engage with history at the click of a button. This democratization of access also strengthens cultural diplomacy, allowing nations to share their stories more broadly.
Broadening educational opportunities
When examples of classroom techniques are available as 3D models, they’re more tangible to students. Static images in textbooks and slide presentations just don’t cut it in today’s classrooms. Now, teachers can incorporate highly detailed 3D models, immersive panoramas, and even experimental techniques like Gaussian Splats to bring the past to life.
Examine structures from near and far with 3D reconstructions. In this example, high-resolution imagery and LiDAR bring downtown Prague to life on screen.
Historical preservation methods before LiDAR
Historical preservation has been a largely manual process until very recently. Architects and historians documented buildings through hand-drawn sketches and blueprints. Then, photography made a huge technological leap, as preservationists could document structures faster and duplicate the results with ease. However, photography initially lacked measurement tools. By the mid-20th century, photogrammetry, aerial photography, and modern surveying equipment added a more technical element to traditional photographs.
Today, laser scanning, GIS, and digital modeling are transforming documentation and enabling highly precise 3D records of monuments and interiors. When combined with LiDAR, drones, and photogrammetry software, this technology offers cost-efficient large-scale mapping.
Digital Twins for Digital Heritage
The main event for Mosaic was our CEO’s presentation on the work we’ve done in the digital cultural heritage space. “Digital Twins for Digital Heritage: From Imagery to Emerging Formats” showcased digital preservation projects captured with our Xplor backpack camera with LiDAR.
He showed the wide variety of use cases for the Xplor in the field of digital cultural preservation. One such example, seen in the photo and video below, is a LiDAR point cloud of the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Caceres, Spain. One walkthrough with the Xplor backpack equipped with LiDAR produced the data needed to create this digital replica of the 600-year-old cathedral.
See the cathedral come to life in 3D after being captured with the Mosaic Xplor and processed in the Mosaic Processor.
The replica isn’t just for looks either- you can even take accurate measurements straight from 3D Gaussian Splats. If you have good calibration, a known scale (or a calibrated rig setup like the one we have), sufficient image overlap, and a controlled scene capture, then you can achieve accurate results. For most practical purposes in historical preservation, studies comparing 3DGS reconstructions with LiDAR benchmarks show error margins that are low enough for accurate measurements.
Jeffrey’s presentation featured a point cloud of the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Caceres, Spain, on the Mosaic Processor.
Data capture at historical sites
The Xplor is uniquely designed for the needs of historians and cultural preservationists. Its portable design and simplicity bring high-end data capture to industries that are new to using this kind of technology. Non-vendor-locked data means even niche, industry-specific software can interpret the data.
Portability
Historical sites were built for a different time. Many of them have small, narrow passageways, low arches, and underground areas. Traditional mobile mapping systems that fit on top of cars are not usually the best device for the job.
However, the Xplor backpack goes wherever you go. Go down narrow alleyways, capture indoor environments, and even take it out into nature on hiking trails. It is the “capture anywhere” solution for complicated historical structures.
Simplicity
Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to be a geospatial expert to operate the Xplor. Its incredibly simple design means you can send even a technological novice to the worksite to capture the data. No swapping out a dozen micro-USBs halfway through the data capture session. No complicated software to set up. It takes about 10 minutes to fully learn the data capture process and start walking (or biking) around.
Non-vendor-locked data
A wide range of industries need 360° cameras with LiDAR, so we pride ourselves on providing Xplor’s data in non-proprietary formats. Your team can continue using the software and workflows they are most comfortable with.
Prague REALMAP: a free offer
The final keynote speaker at Digital Heritage 2025, Dominic Powlesland, requested that software and hardware vendors be more open and generous with their offers in order to further research, development, and cultural heritage in general. Following his presentation, Lynn presented Mosaic’s gift of the Prague REALMAP dataset to the research community.
This entirely free dataset of 1.3 million images of downtown Prague is available for non-commercial use. It is already being used by universities and start-ups to test algorithms, perform photogrammetry, create 3D reconstructions, and more.
To get in on the buzz and run your own experiments on this free dataset, follow this link’s instructions and send us the results!
1.3 million images of free street-view data of downtown Prague are available for non-commercial use, courtesy of Mosaic
See you next time?
When we asked Jeffrey about his overall impressions of the Digital Heritage 2025 conference, he said,
“While the digital heritage space may not be as huge or well-funded as, say, the oil industry, it is absolutely in need of solutions such as ours – systems for 360° imaging, photogrammetry, and 3D Gaussian Splats. We had compelling conversations with everyone from students to large organizations already well established in digital cultural heritage.” -Jeffrey Martin
The only downside to Digital Heritage 2025 is that it is not a yearly event! The next one should be in 2028, and we look forward to attending and bringing even more exciting technologies to the conversation.
To learn more about how the Xplor can meet your unique mobile mapping needs at historical sites and cultural spaces, reach out to Mosaic today!
Written by Caroline Beach and Lynn Puzzo
