Documenting a cultural landscape using point-cloud 3d models obtained with geomatic integration techniques. The case of the El Encín atomic garden, Madrid (Spain)

A country’s cultural landscapes are an important part of its heritage. The growing need to identify, catalogue and preserve these resources has led to a rapid change in the management and inventorying of heritage in general and of cultural landscapes in particular. The main aim of this work is to develop and apply an updated and integrated methodology for capturing and processing geo-information for the digital documentation of cultural heritage. The proposed case study is the atomic garden in the Finca El Encín (Madrid), a singular space with unique biogeographical features created over 60 years ago. The results of the case study validate the method, consisting of an unmanned aerial platform equipped with sensors to obtain point clouds and aerial images in conjunction with point clouds and images captured with a terrestrial laser scanner.