The era of digitization has greatly influenced the fields of architecture and relief, leading to an increase in detection methodologies over the past 20 years, through the tools and software that have led to the use of digital capture, such as laser scanners and photomodeling.

The survey applied to archaeological areas must pay attention to all those characteristics of the architectural object that can provide important information to the figure of the archaeologist, in order to conduct his analysis. It becomes necessary to describe the walls in a scale of detail useful for the definition of different wall sections, the stone-working process, and the relationships between masonry or adjacent architectural elements. To be able to define these characteristics, the morphological survey must be completed by detailed photographic information. The photographic data facilitate the process of the stratigraphic units’ detection, especially during the graphics rendering of the analysis.

In archaeoseismology it is of fundamental importance to dispose of reliable 3D metric surveys that allow to accurately register and document the architecture. The model of the whole architectural complex would allow to relate different parts of the structure – particularly the volumes, room floorings and visible architectural elements (i.e. windows, portals, etc.) – detecting both inconsistencies and similarities with what emerges from the preliminary examination of the wall surfaces. Furthermore, the cloud points obtained from the laser scanner constitute a particularly explicative and useful base for data registration and interpretation; this is achieved through the production, when necessary, of elevations and sections, and the detailed analysis of areas considered of major interest. An example of this practice, is the characterization of the deformations that can be obtained from the analysis of both the interior and the exterior wall structures, allowing in some cases to comprehend the extent of the shifts that took place, as well as the relation between the identified portions and the complexity of the structure as a whole. Finally, by relating this data with the stratigraphic reading a series of relative chronologies can be hypothesized for certain collapse mechanisms, offering also invaluable interpretative insights on the reasons behind the formation of such problems.