Latest developments in rock art recording: towards an integral documentation of Levantine rock art sites combining 2D and 3D recording techniques

Abstract

This paper presents a further step in the integral documentation of prehistoric rock art, combining 2D and 3D digital recording techniques. Image processing and digital enhancement techniques are an invaluable aid to obtain high quality and accurate 2D recordings, especially when working with faint motifs or complex superimpositions. But what constitutes a real breakthrough is the possibility of combining 2D digital tracings with metric 3D models, providing a whole set of metric outputs that improve our understanding of the motifs in their context and, at the same time, can be used to deliver accurate metric reproductions. The Levantine rock art at Cingle de la Mola Remigia (Ares del Maestre, Castellón, Spain) is used to test the integral documentation performance combining 2D and 3D recording techniques to yield not merely digital copies, but state-of-the-art documentation.