Under these conditions, ceramicists must “curate” what they feel are the most representative items at any given time, despite the often changing nature of assemblages as sites are excavated and a greater understating of data sets is achieved. Such trained personnel are not always available to archaeological projects. The quality also varies and is dependent on the skill and experience of a draftsperson. Documentation is normally undertaken through 2D photography and initially through pencil drawings, which are time-consuming to produce. Our objective is to develop a method that increases access to ceramic data sets, encouraging further engagement and the development of new strands of research.Ĭost and time-constraints on many projects allow for only a small portion of ceramic assemblages (where they are found in significant numbers) to be documented. A plethora of research questions can be answered by studying pottery, including a range of complex cultural, social, and economic themes (for an overview, cf.
#Allignment function meshlab full
Badreshany and Philip ( 2020), considering the research context of the Near East, point out that the difficulties and costs associated with the analysis and recording of pottery data mean it is often inadequately disseminated in publications and between groups of scholars, which has hindered the full realization of its explanatory potential. Despite the great research value of ceramics, scholars often limit their focus to a few basic themes: chronology, typological development, and the identification of regional associations of style/fabrics. This study focuses on ceramic data because of its ubiquity in many archaeological contexts, though a workflow similar to the one described here can easily be adapted to other classes of material culture (cf., e.g., Magnani, Douglass, Schroder, Reeves, & Braun, 2020). 3D modeling, if used at all, is usually restricted to small unrepresentative parts of larger assemblages.īelow, we present a new method for the rapid, large-scale 3D digitization of ceramic artifacts, which will allow researchers to undertake their recording more quickly, accurately, and cheaply and ultimately widen accessibility of new extensive data sets to interested researchers.
![allignment function meshlab allignment function meshlab](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/T7gAuI-LQ2w/hqdefault.jpg)
Despite the great utility and take up of the technology for the documentation of sites and monuments more generally, using these methods is not yet a standard practice for artifact documentation. More recently, Structure from Motion (SfM) 3D modeling has become widely used within the field of archaeology.
![allignment function meshlab allignment function meshlab](https://www.mdpi.com/materials/materials-03-04915/article_deploy/html/images/materials-03-04915-g002.png)
Eslami, Di Angelo, Di Stefano, & Pane, 2020 Forte, 2010 Gilboa, Tal, Shimshoni, & Kolomenkin, 2013 Tanasi, 2020 Wilczek, 2017). The development of digital methods for the documentation of archaeological artifacts has been given much attention over the last three decades (for an overview cf.
![allignment function meshlab allignment function meshlab](http://domoticx.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Meshlab-NoiseRemoval.jpg)
We expect that these factors will enable excavators to greatly increase digital access to their material, which will significantly enhance its utility for subsequent research. The results show that the new technique detailed here is accessible, more cost-effective, and allows for the documentation of ceramic data at a far-greater scale, while producing more consistent and reproducible results. The same set of sherds were drawn by an experienced draftsperson and then documented through SfM using our new workflow to allow for a direct comparison. To showcase the method’s effectiveness and applicability, a case study was developed in the context of an investigation of the Phoenician economy at the Lebanese site of Tell el-Burak, which is based on a large collection of amphora sherds. The method has great potential to enhance and replace time-consuming and expensive conventional approaches for pottery documentation, i.e., 2D photographs and drawing on paper with subsequent digitization of the drawings.
![allignment function meshlab allignment function meshlab](https://oslandia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Interspect_UAS_photogrammetry-634x458-1.jpg)
This paper presents a new rapid, low-cost method for the large-scale documentation of pottery sherds through simultaneous multiple 3D model capture using Structure from Motion (SfM).