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GPR Measurements with Advanced Isosurface Rendering Technique for Accurately Characterizing Subsurface Archaeological Structure at Al-Nadura Roman Temple in Egypt

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Abstract

The application of modern visualization techniques (e.g., isosurface rendering) has been beneficial for the 3D presentation of ground penetrating radar (GPR) datasets, compared to the conventional time-slice imaging method, in order to facilitate GPR data interpretation. In this case study, we concentrate on how to apply isosurface rendering technique to easily interpret and highlight the spatial variations within GPR data in archaeological applications. Isosurface renders are generated from surfaces with equal amplitudes, which are illuminated in the 3D data volume using artificial light that reflects off the surface, where the surfaces appear as 3D shaded images. In this paper, GPR data were acquired with a GSSI SIR2000 system using a 200 MHz shielded antenna and 0.5 m inline spacing in both x- and y-directions at Al-Nadura Temple archaeological site. The main objective of this case study was to image subsurface archaeological structures and potentially characterize cut-off ancient burial tombs inside ferrous sandstone situated at Al-Nadura temple, which date back to the Romans periods in Egypt. According to this case study, we highlighted the importance of isosurface rendering technique analyses towards more intensive GPR data interpretation and target identification. Moreover, by comparing extracted isosurface data with conventional presented time-slice, we demonstrate the radar important interpretability of the advanced visualization methods for precisely characterizing subsurface archaeological structures.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank deanship of scientific research, Majmaah University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for funding this work under Project Number 1440-154. Also, the author would like to thank the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities for giving me a permission to use their site (Al-Nadura temple) for GPR survey, and my colleagues in NRIAG, Egypt for their help and support during field work. Moreover I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Dean Goodman for helping me to process the GPR data using his software GPR-Slice.

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  1. National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), 11421, Helwan, Cairo, Egypt

    Mahmoud Gaballah

  2. Department of Physics, College of Science in Al-Zulfi, Majmaah University, Al-Majmaah City, 11952, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Mahmoud Gaballah

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Correspondence to Mahmoud Gaballah.

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Gaballah, M. GPR Measurements with Advanced Isosurface Rendering Technique for Accurately Characterizing Subsurface Archaeological Structure at Al-Nadura Roman Temple in Egypt. Sens Imaging 20, 40 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11220-019-0263-x

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