On 25 April 2025 the RISPRO team at Tadulako University completed an end-to-end workflow converting field video recordings of megalithic sites into three-dimensional Augmented Reality models. In Bada Valley, researchers captured every contour and carving of statues and menhirs using a high-definition handheld camera. Those clips were broken down into thousands of still frames, over 1,000 full-HD images to preserve every crack and erosion pattern with precision.
All extracted frames were imported into photogrammetry software, where a Structure-from-Motion algorithm aligned the images into a sparse point cloud before generating a dense point cloud of tens of millions of 3D points. These points were then triangulated into a mesh, which was optimized down to approximately 200,000 triangles to balance accuracy with runtime performance. UV unwrapping and texture baking mapped original photographic pixels onto the mesh, capturing moss, chisel marks, and natural wear.
Once meshing and texturing were finalized, the model was exported as an FBX file and brought into Unity Editor to build a standalone application. In Unity, each model was configured as a prefab with AR marker setup—point a smartphone at the physical marker and the 3D statue appears, ready to rotate, zoom, and reveal pop-up panels of historical narration and local wisdom.
The first image shows the RISPRO team recording field video across the valley, the second captures the Unity Editor during app development, the third displays the 3D mesh in the photogrammetry workspace, and the fourth presents the final AR Megalitikum 3.0 interface ready for deployment.
This development represents a major milestone in the “Development of an Integrated Management System ‘Negeri Seribu Megalit’ as a Learning Resource, Tourism Attraction, and Cultural Heritage Conservation” project.
