Comparative Analysis of Open-Source and Commercial Photogrammetry Software for Cultural Heritage

Recently, photogrammetry has become a relatively easy and low-cost method for cultural heritage 3D reconstruction. Plenty of free and open-source photogrammetry programs have been developed, but not all of them provide an adequate solution for the 3D reconstruction of cultural heritage. In this research, an overview of the state-of-the-art open-source photogrammetry programs was done. In order to investigate whether among the open-source software packages there is an adequate alternative to the commercial software for the purpose of cultural heritage 3D reconstruction, the open-source software - AliceVision Meshroom was compared to the most commonly used commercial software Agisoft Metashape. The programs were compared on the examples of cultural heritage objects and according to the predefined criteria that are important for achieving detailed and accurate 3D reconstruction. The results of testing and comparing the 3D reconstructions obtained using Meshroom and Metashape were illustrated and explained through two case studies of antic objects of cultural heritage, characterized by similar materialization, but different geometric shapes.