Would a mobile app to perform LiDAR scans on artifacts or small sections of dig sites be helpful? Wyatt (9)

Would a mobile app to perform LiDAR scans on artifacts or small sections of dig sites including GPS, or small LiDAR use cases not aerial scans of large pieces of land be helpful for cataloging gps coordinates of where an artifact was found, the dimensions, along with a high resolution color photo be helpful for archeologists? If yes, what kind of feedback would you have to ensure it delivered the most value to archeologists? What would be the bare minimum things it would need to do to be helpful? What data fields would be helpful or critical to have, should it integrate with other archeology applications, etc?

Dear Wyatt,

There are already some LiDAR apps available but they are mainly used for architecture and large scale mapping. The problem is, LiDAR does not work very well on small objects and most of the artefacts we encounter on commercial archaeological excavations are not very big (of course there are exceptions). With small objects, there wouldn’t be enough data points to plan the shape accurately and the end result might not be very precise.

LiDAR is used in archaeology but mostly to map the landscape and archaeological sites within it. When it comes to smaller objects or spaces, we usually use photogrammetry. It consists of taking photos from different angles in order to create a 3D model.

3D scanners can also be used for smaller objects but they are very expensive and not used extensively in archaeology.

The idea of adding the GPS coordinates of an artefact to the LiDAR map is an interesting one and maybe one that could work? All the plans produced for our site reports are always georeferenced and the most important artefacts are also added to the plans so all this information is already available in excavation reports. Maybe you could find a way to link all this information to the LiDAR maps?

Odile, November 2025