Apples to Oranges: Measuring the Efficacy of Apple’s Object Capture Photogrammetry API for 3D Modeling in Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The creation of 3D models using photogrammetry has become an increasingly important aspect of archaeological investigation and outreach, allowing researchers to ask deeper quantitative questions and reach wider audiences. As technological advancements continue, it is crucial to assess how effectively photogrammetry applications are producing research-quality 3D models. In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of Apple's Object Capture photogrammetry API. Our findings indicate that Object Capture is not only a viable option to create research-quality models, but also effective for a variety of natural landscapes and cultural objects. Most notable is this application’s efficiency and ease of use when compared to other photogrammetry applications. Object Capture has little need for masking backgrounds within images and creates models with fewer than 100 images in under 10 minutes, facilitating a faster modeling workflow.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52604