Il sistema GPS per il rilevamento del territorio: potenzialità e limiti dei diversi metodi di acquisizione

The purpose of this paper is to present a summary of the potential and the limits of the use of Satellite Positioning Systems in the field of archaeological research and, more generally, in the construction of numeric models describing the territory.In the first section we will examine the various methods of acquisition, with emphasison the measuring time and the level of accuracy in the different applications.In the second section, we have presented some study cases, in particular the researchconducted in collaboration with the Department of Medieval Archaeology of the Universityof Florence regarding some castles in Crusader era Ayyubid Transjordan (valley of Petra,Castle of Shawbak ) and the results of he project entitled "The Necropolis of Colle delForno" conducted by the CNR and by the Archaeological Superintendency of Latium.In the first case a 3D reconstruction of the rock formation on which the villagesbeing studied are built is illustrated. Moreover, for the Castle of Wu'ayra, we have givena description of the system utilized for the photographic coverage of the village, obtainedwith images taken from a low-flying kite and geo-referenced with GPS.In the case of Colle del Forno, in order to evaluate the accuracy of the results inrelationship to the time required for realization, the survey made by the GPS in cinematicmode and that made with Total Station are compared. In this way we hope to contribute tothe choice of strategies to be employed focusing on the costs and benefits of the differentmethods which can be used.