Rock Art in Three Dimensions: Comments on the Use and Possibilities of 3D Rock Art Documentation

AbstractMethods to document rock art in all three dimensions have become a standardized workflow. In this article, we discuss their advantages and disadvantages when compared to older reductive approaches to rock art documentation. Furthermore, some misunderstandings regarding 3D documentation are addressed. As the majority of the problems presented by the 3D documentation of rock art can be solved through advanced visualization workflows, recent developments in this area are described. The rock art documentation described in this contribution also serves wider research purposes, which will be discussed. Newly discovered images and newly developed machine learning algorithms will also be introduced.