3D Mesh Corpus: Tamil Temple Bas-Relief Motifs, Kulavilakkamman Temple, Kalamangalam (Depth_Anything_3_Motifs_CLI)

3D Mesh Corpus: Tamil Temple Bas-Relief Motifs -  Kulavilakkamman Temple (Kalamangalam), Narasimhaswamy Temple (Namakkal), and Brihadeeswara / Arulmigu Sri Rajagopalswamy Temples (Thanjavur)

3D mesh outputs (STL format) from the Depth_Anything_3_Motifs_CLI pipeline, applied to single orthographic smartphone photographs of carved bas-relief motifs, friezes, and decorative programmes across three Tamil Nadu heritage sites. Meshes were generated using Depth Anything 3 (DA3) monocular depth estimation and the Segment Anything Model (SAM), processed through motifs_interactive.py, and exported as binary STL heightfield meshes.

Contents

• thanjavur_meshes/ — 10 panels from Brihadeeswara (Thanjavur Periya Kovil, Chola, 1010 CE) and Arulmigu Sri Rajagopalswamy Temple
• kalamangalam_meshes/ — 10 panels from Kulavilakkamman Temple, Kalamangalam (Kongu Nadu)
• namakkal_meshes/ — 15 panels from Narasimhaswamy Temple, Namakkal (rock-cut, 6th–8th century CE)
• mesh_metrics_updated.csv — per-panel quantitative metrics: surface normal consistency (SNC), relief amplitude (p1–p99 spread, normalised mesh units), bounding box dimensions, mesh integrity flags, decimation provenance, and reprocessing notes for 5 panels re-exported at 2048 px target width

Total: 35 unique panels, all evaluated successfully. One MD5-confirmed duplicate removed during corpus preparation. Five panels initially produced malformed exports and were reprocessed at reduced mesh density (2048 px vs 4000 px original target); reprocessed panels are flagged reprocessed_at_2048px in the notes column of mesh_metrics_updated.csv.

Mesh units: normalised (relative depth, not metric). Z-axis values are proportional to carved relief depth but are not calibrated to physical millimetres. Metric calibration is reserved for a planned second field acquisition with caliper-measured ground truth.

Motif programmes documented include: karukku (கருக்கு) creeper-scroll friezes (nava karukkugal categories), dvimatsya/dvimakara bilateral facing fish panels, suriya mandalam solar disc, yaali (யாளி) feline friezes, warrior figures, cyclic vanara groups, and bilateral facing makara panels.

Pipeline: github.com/libishm1/Depth_Anything_3_Motifs_CLI

License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Meshes are released for academic research, heritage documentation, and non-commercial educational use. Physical fabrication for non-commercial heritage dissemination is permitted.

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