site.btaCulture Ministry Provides National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage with Modern 3D Imaging Equipment

The Culture Ministry provided the National Institute of Immovable Cultural Heritage (NIICH) with advanced digital equipment for documenting immovable cultural heritage, the Ministry's press office said on Monday. This will help in faster updating of the register of immovable cultural property as well as in identifying new sites that deserve to be part of Bulgaria's cultural heritage.

Culture Minister Krastyu Krastev described the equipment as essential for NIICH’s work.

The 4 laser scanners, the 4 drones with high-precision panoramic imaging and mapping equipment and the specialized software will transfer the physical objects into ultra-precise 3D models in the data space and will open new perspectives for the preservation of the Bulgarian immovable cultural heritage.

Archaeological and architectural sites of national and global importance will be digitized through the equipment in the coming months, as it will be also used in the next stage of the territorial programme and for the documentation of archaeological reserves and Bulgarian immovable property abroad, said NIICH Director Architect Petar Petrov.

He stressed that nearly half of the national immovable heritage is destroyed or threatened. 

„The territorial programme, which started in 2022, outlines a trend: 10% of the sites are completely destroyed, about 35% are in emergency condition - a huge loss for cultural memory and our national identity, for the tourism industry and for the economy. Digital capture is a chance to preserve and restore endangered sites in the digital and real world,“ Petrov explained.

The use of 3D has sparked a real revolution in the study and restoration of immovable cultural property worldwide. Virtual models provide a vast amount of data about objects in detail that is invisible to the eye and to the techniques used so far. Virtual and augmented reality can also breathe new life into long-vanished artifacts to use for education or cultural experiences.

Digital technology gives experts another major advantage - the process will now take a matter of hours, and the capture will be of incomparably greater scope and volume. This will allow the NIICH teams to complete the 12 years overdue update of the register of immovable cultural property.

The funds for the new digital equipment, software, laptops and 3 cars for the teams working in the field were provided by the Culture Ministry. Their total value is nearly BGN 1.5 million.