Lidar remote sensing of stone cultural heritage: detection of protective treatments

Treatments of different chemical composition are employed to preserve the surface of historical stone building. The uniform distribution of the protective treatment and the conservation of its integrity during the years are crucial factors for an efficient protection of the monument. A technique which allows a remote mapping of the treatment and its characteristics would be therefore very attractive. The paper describes the first experiments devoted to the investigation of fluorescence lidar potential in the monitoring of protective treatments on a stone surface. Dolomitic Marble samples were treated with different protective substances and than analysed by a laboratory set up which simulates a lidar measurement. Although further investigations are necessary these laboratory results indicate an interesting potential of the lidar in the non-destructive, remote monitoring of the protective treatments.