Murab’a Fort
Historic Building Survey
The Murab’a Fort was built in 1948 by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as a watchtower and quarters for the royal guards. In the 1950s, the tower was used as a police post and by 1960, a defensive wall was constructed to form a large rectangular courtyard. Murab’a Fort lies in the city centre of Al Ain, in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and bears historical and architectural significance due to its traditional Emirati vernacular architecture.
Gate of Murab’a Fort
3-D model of east gate.
Orthophoto of east gate.
The team members met to discuss the methodology for documentation. The goal of this case study was to develop a metrically accurate model of a part of the wall of Murab’a Fort with high quality imagery to assess the current condition of the site. This case study conducted illustrated the efficiency of terrestrial photogrammetry in the production of high quality, metrically accurate, 3-D models to detect changes over time.
Level 2 was implemented. The survey recorded the east gate, a component part of the Murab’a Fort.
The gate was surveyed in level 2.
16 control points were measured throughout the site with a Leica total station to improve the accuracy of the photogrammetric model.
Photographs were taken with a high-quality digital camera to produce a photographic portfolio for the site, and for use in the photogrammetric applications. Careful consideration was given to the lighting and quality of the photographs captured.
A metrically accurate photogrammetric model of the fort was created using Agisoft Metashape photogrammetry software. A highly detailed and metrically accurate 3-D model of the fort was developed and models were exported as a 3-D PDF file which could be measured and manipulated in
Adobe Acrobat.
Orthophotos for the façades of the fort were created. Orthophotos allowed for an accurate and highly detailed representation of an element projected onto a given plane, and as such proved a useful tool for the documentation of this historic fort.