Malta is not only known as a vacation island; it has also experienced many power struggles in the past. In consequence of the island’s location, Malta was an important hub between the various empires and, thus, always a point of attack. Because of the numerous attacks, the Maltese invested into the construction of forts.
The Fort St. Elmo in the east of Malta’s capital Valetta is one of the forts which should offer protection against attacks. Since the fort is located on a peninsula and protrudes into the sea, it offered – together with Fort St. Angelo – protection for the Grand Harbour and the Marsamxett Harbour.
Fort St. Elmo on the island of Malta (Source: Google Maps)
In the course of restoration of Fort St. Elmo, a discovery was made last month. As chance would have it, during restoration works at the main wall of fort, some stones broke away from the wall and fell down. Thus, the remains of an historic access at Fort St Elmo have been discovered.
It is said that the access was used to provide soldiers during the Great Siege in 1565. Due to the direct accessibility to the ocean and the hidden location, this access was the single connection with the outside world at that time.
After the access’ discovery, a team set about exploring the circumstances. The team wanted to document each detail and made use of a laser scanner. Thus, the access could be captured completely in a short time.
View into the access
Scan result: Sectional view of the access
Seven scanner positions were required in order to scan the access completely. The alignment of the single point clouds was achieved by reference spheres.
A video has been made in order to combine the results. The short video shows a virtual flight through the access. This video has been presented at the publication:
Laserscanning Europe specializes in facilitating the customer’s first steps into laser scanning technology. We offer our customers laser scanning in a kind of training on the job and attend them directly in real projects.
If you need help in your laser scanning project, you are at the right address here! If you have any questions, we help you any way we can.
Are you interested? Don't hesitate to contact us!
