Digital reconstruction of fragmented artefacts: improved methods for data capture

This is a major outcome of a research project addressing the “fragmentation problem” of ancient architectural monuments. The overall research aim was to develop a new methodology for fragment matching using statistical analysis techniques. However, only when sufficiently accurate digital records of fragments exist can computer aided reconstruction take place. To address this imperative, a new digital recording methodology, capable of highly accurate data capture, was developed.

The data capture method evolved from the adaptation of recording techniques used in engineering and the paper expands and develops arguments made in previous research.

The research resolved the issue of data suitability for statistical analysis, succeeding where earlier attempts by others to solve the problem had failed due to problems of data inaccuracy.

Many conservation projects deal with fragment matching and the methodology introduced here provides a foundation for accurate fragment recording that could greatly simplify the fragmentation problem. The methodology has the potential to transform the way archaeological fragments are recorded.

Dr Athanasios Velios studied archaeological conservation at the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens. He completed his PhD on Computer Application to Conservation at the Royal College of Arts, London in 2002, where he explored the automatic reconstruction of fragmented objects using 3D computer models. He has been working in digital documentation in conservation for the past eight years, and has previously been a lecturer in digital documentation methods at TEI, Athens. In 2003 he was appointed as Research Fellow for the Saint Catherine's Library Conservation Project at Camberwell College of Arts, where he specialises in the digital documentation of Byzantine bookbinding. He is responsible for the digitisation of the condition survey at the library of the St.Catherine Monastery. He has recently received joint-AHRC funding for the development of an English/Greek glossary for the structures and materials of Byzantine and Greek bookbinding.