Virtual assembly of pottery fragments using moiré surface profile measurements

Reconstruction of archaeological monuments and potteries from fragments found at archaeological sites is a tedious task that requires many hours of work from archaeologists and restoration personnel. Excavations from famous archaeological sites in Jordan such as Petra, Jerash, Um Qeis, Ajlun etc. indicated civilization throughout centuries, from prehistoric periods, up to present. The restoration process is tedious and lengthy due to the mass of fragile fragments which consists of thousands of sherds found at excavation sites. An approach is the use of shadow moiré experimental technique to obtain the 3D model of pots from 3D measurements of the surface profile using the photos captured. This method is a non-destructive optical technique used for visual surface inspection, and surface profile measurements. The approach is simple, requires minimal mathematical calculations and reduces the risk of frequent handling of the fragile sherds, because the photos can be captured using a simple experimental setup in the site. Matching of fragments and aligning them geometrically is based on matching the profiles and edges of the broken parts virtually. This virtual assembly technique may assist the archaeologists as much as possible in solving their task with minimum time and minimum damages to fragments. The technique, of course, does not completely replace the archaeologist, but provides a useful estimation of valid fragment combinations, and accurately measures fragment matches. It also simplifies modeling the pots virtually using 3D-MAX modeling software to obtain the missing pieces.