The 7th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage VAST (2006) M. Ioannides, D. Arnold, F.

Niccolucci, K. Mania (Editors)

Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.
H. Pires 1, P. Ortiz 2, P. Marques 1 H. Sanchez 2
2 1 Superfcie- Solues Geogrficas, Maia, Portugal - mail@superficie-geo.com University of Extremadura, Centro Universitario de Mrida, Espanha pedrotop3d@yahoo.es, sasah@unex.es

Abstract In this paper we present an experimental study of ceramic pottery reconstruction from sherds, using closerange laser scanning. The main objective of this study was the geometric analysis and the 3D reconstruction of the pots morphology aiming to contribute to the understanding of the constructive ceramic process. The fragments belong to a small XVIth century ceramic pot found in an archaeological excavation at the Convent of Santo Antnio de Ferreirim in Lamego, Portugal. The existing fragments reconstitute approximately 1/3 of the entire pot along with a piece of one of the handles and two decorative medallions. The contiguous fragments were glued together by the archaeology team remaining, at the end of this process, five loose pieces. All sherds were scanned with a Konica-Minolta Vivid 9i 3D non-contact digitizer. Some mathematical computations were necessary for the final reconstruction: the reconstituted fragments were geometrically analysed in order to determinate the axis and revolution profile. The position estimation of the five loose fragments was accomplished through geometric analysis of the decorative patterns and allowed us to propose a hypothetical 3D model of the entire pot. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3 [Computer Graphics]: I.3.3 Picture/Image generation - Digitizing and scanning; I.3.7 Three-dimensional graphics and realism Virtual reality I.3.8 Applications. This monastery was built at the end of medieval age and was completely reformed in the first half of the XVIth century.

1. Introduction Laser scanner technology is increasingly being applied to cultural heritage. Among other advantages, the accuracy and the enormous amount of collected data contributes to the development of fields like registry and heritage documentation, conservation, archaeology, cultural tourism, among others. This project was thought and carried out in the perspective of bridging the gaps between conservation experts and heritage recorders so as to raise the level of conservation practices [LG02], joining together both actors, providers and users, through collaborative work. 1.1. Geographical and historical context In 2003 in an archaeological excavation, promoted by the Portuguese Architectural Heritage Institute (IPPAR) at the Monastery of Santo Antnio de Ferreirim in Lamego, a significant amount of sherds belonging to a very fine and exquisite ceramic pot were found in the middle of rough ceramic fragments. 1.2. Object description At the end of the archaeological analysis process almost all the sherds were glued in one big reconstructed fragment

Figure 1 Map of the northern region of Portugal with location of Monastery of Santo Antnio de Ferreirim (red spot). remaining five loose sherds: three single pieces; one medium size fragment and a part of a handle. Our study began with these six elements.

H. Pires & P. Ortiz & P. Marques & H. Sanchez / Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.

This pot is classified in the group of non-vitrified fine reddish ceramic and has a height of 9.7 cm and a maximum diameter of 9.8 cm at the rim. Apart from the main body, decorated with vegetable ornaments made through small incisions, the pot has two medallions representing the bust of a knight with long hair and moustache, built by mould techniques, and one handle, although archaeologists suppose that the original pot had a second handle in a symmetrical position [Lar06].

axes: the centres of the medallions and the axes of the handles [Lar06]. Some of the initial considerations could be checked through visual inspection but others needed a more thorough analysis: the geometric symmetry; the constructive process of the pots main body; the thickness of the clay in respect to the deepness of the incisions and the possible position of the loose fragments. This study aims to answer these questions, or at least to contribute to strengthen the archaeological interpretation providing accurate data. 2. Data collection and processing The need for high level of detail and accuracy was one of the main criteria in the choice of the technology to use, along with a limited amount of time that we had to survey this archaeological artifact. All sherds of the ceramic pot were scanned with a Konica-Minolta Vivid 9i 3D noncontact digitizer with an accuracy of +/-0.050mm and a precision of 0,008mm. The fragments were placed on a black velvet cloth, normally used to photograph archaeological artifacts, which turned out to be an excellent choice because no points from the supporting platform were capture by the laser scanner, providing, in this way, a clear scan. Some acrylic supports were also used to place the fragments in favourable positions in order to capture its entire shape.

Figure 2 Ceramic pot fragments after archaeological reconstruction. 1.3. Constructive techniques The initial analysis of the ceramic pot constructive process shows, at least, two different techniques. In one hand the moulding processes used in the medallions and also in the wreaths (in the top and bottom of the existing handle) led archaeologists to consider a semi-industrial fabrication process. In another hand, the main body indicates the probable use of a potters wheel along with the decorative hand drawings showing a handicraft process.

Figure 4 - Laser Scanner System Konica-Minolta Vivid 9i 3D non-contact digitizer. Point cloud acquisition, as well as all the tasks mentioned in this paper were done using RapidForm 2006 (INNUS Tech., 2006), with the built-in interface for Vivid digitizers. Scans of interior and exterior sides of the fragments were captured separately, creating two different point clouds for each fragment. The biggest sherd needed four extra scans to complete the survey. The first step in data process was to create a mesh from each point cloud set; this operation included triangulation of the point clouds and noise removal. After, the several meshes from each sherd were registered in one single coordinate system. This alignment was done in two stages: rough and fine alignment. The first one is a semi-manual process where common points from overlapping areas on each mesh are manually selected providing rough rotation

Figure 3 Photograph of the pots medallion. 1.4. Scope of the work The main objective of this study was to help archaeologists with the morphological analysis of this odd ceramic artifact aiming to understand its constructive process, to provide accurate dimensioning and to reconstruct a hypothetical 3D model supported by the existing fragments. In terms of morphology the initial hypothesis was that this pot had a bi-symmetrical construction defined by two

H. Pires & P. Ortiz & P. Marques & H. Sanchez / Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.

and translation values. The fine alignment tool provides an automatic alignment based on the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm [HCMV05]. This alignment can be refined by changing the numbers of iterations or the target alignment error. The average distance between the alignments was 0.042mm and the standard deviation 0.064mm.

Finally, all the point clouds were meshed, aligned and merged into separate 3d models for each fragment.

Figure 7 Resulting meshes from scanning with a flat mirror. Figure 5 Point cloud from the biggest fragment. Next step was merging the aligned scans in to one single model; RapidForm provides two kinds of merge tools, one based on the surface zippering [TL94] and the other on the volumetric approach [GVP05]. Once the surface zippering operates directly on triangle meshes it as a better behaviour on relatively smooth surface than in regions of high curvature, thus in our case we used the volumetric approach, which was more appropriate for our work, showing better performance with respect to noise reduction and hole filling. 3. Geometrical analysis In this section we describe the methodology used to analyse the geometric characteristics of the biggest fragment. The initial hypothesis was that the ceramic pot to which this fragment belongs was inscribed in a revolution solid. The correspondent revolution axis and the generatrix profile were defined through a sequence of operations described bellow. 3.1. Revolution axis estimation The proposed method is based on the geometric properties of a revolution solid, which defines that any horizontal section is a circle with centre contained in the rotation axis. The rims well defined morphology of pottery biggest sherd, allowed the estimation of a horizontal plan of the object. In this case we have defined a circle passing through one of the flutes. Making the plan that contains this circle our horizontal reference we have sliced the fragment in several parts obtaining horizontal sections that, theoretically, should describe concentric circles, defining our rotation axis.

Figure 6 3D mesh from the major fragment. The alignment stage presented some problems; part of the scanned fragments had a very small overlapping area between interior and exterior faces, in the worst case just the thickness of the edge. To solve this problem a flat mirror was used in order to collect in a single scan both interior and exterior faces. Some opaque targets were placed in the mirror and scanned at the same time as the fragments providing the coordinates for the subsequent symmetry transformation of the point clouds.

Figure 8 Horizontal sections.

H. Pires & P. Ortiz & P. Marques & H. Sanchez / Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.

The sections obtained from the model were imported to Matlab (The MathWorks, Inc., USA), in order to calculate their best fit circle. Due to the fact that the exterior sections of the model reflected all the irregularities of decorations, we decide to use only the interior sections of the fragment. The sections that intercept the medallion and handle regions also revealed a deformation to the interior of the pot (some considerations on this subject are presented in the conclusions at the end of this article). The parts where this kind of deformation was identified were excluded from the data set to avoid erroneous results in the average centre calculation. Because the obtained sections were not completely inscribed in circles, we have calculated the best fit circle for each section data using Least Squares Method (LSM), the ordinary version once it was not given any weight to data observations [Abd03]. The rotation axis, perpendicular to the previously defined horizontal plan, was defined from the average centre of all the circles.

Figure 10 3D model radial sections (left) and overlay of sections (right). 3.3. Symmetry plans To corroborate the archaeologists hypothesis of a bisymmetrical scheme from the handles and medallions positioning two vertical plans were defined, one through the centre of the medallion and the other through the vertical axis of the handle. The intersection angle of these plans was 89.25. 4. Virtual Reconstruction The definition of the profile and rotation axis provided the basic elements to rebuild the virtual ceramic pot.

Figure 9 Axonometric representation of all the centres of the adjusted circles and the calculated rotation axis (left); centres and rotation axis horizontal projection (top right); distance from centres to the rotation axis and the respective mean distance (0.072 mm) (bottom right). 3.2. Profile The generatrix profile was defined from vertical radial sections of the model, calculated from the intersection of a vertical plan containing the previously defined revolution axis and the model. Analysing the overlay of all the sections some irregularities were identified and excluded: ornamental features in the outside of the pot and inside deformations. After removing patches and redundant data a simplified profile was manually estimated. Figure 11 - Revolution solid. Next stage in virtual reconstruction process was the placement of the loose fragments. The fragment that contains the second medallion was placed in the symmetrical position of the first one using the previously defined symmetry plan. The position estimation of the three smallest fragments was not so easy. Because they do not present any singular feature that could allow a direct interpretation a new methodology was developed based on decoration pattern that use the same symmetry plans centred on the medallion

H. Pires & P. Ortiz & P. Marques & H. Sanchez / Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.

and handle position. The first step was to draw the existing pattern on the major fragment.

Figure 14 Hypothetical virtual reconstruction model with overlay of existing fragments. 5. Conclusions Figure 12 - Decorative elements restitution. Using the symmetry plans defined by the medallion and handle this pattern was reproduced to the inexistent areas of the model. This drawing was the key to find the possible places of each small fragment. From the visual analysis of the decorative pattern we were able to find the unique place for each fragment, in this way they were placed in their original positions. The extreme quality of this ceramic pot, in a morphologic and decorative point of view, led to an unanswered question: for what purpose was this small ceramic pot made? Some of the results of this study are very intriguing: the thickness of the pots walls (2mm) reveals an extreme perfection in the manufacturing process and, if we think on the handmade decorative incisions (1mm deep), one can conclude that this piece of art was made by a very skilled craftsman. Another aspect is the geometric regularity of all the sections, both horizontal and radial (in the first ones the biggest value of centre dispersion is less than 2 mm). The knowledge acquired in this work along with the archaeologists contribution and collaboration in all the phases of this study allows us to propose a step-by-step constructive process. The first operation was the construction of the main body, probably in a potters wheel, although some questions arise when we think on the perfection of some geometric features. After the moulded elements (medallion and wreaths) were placed in the main body along with the handles (there is also the possibility that the rim could have been made by mould techniques, again because of its geometric perfection). The almost perfect symmetry, verified in this study, between the two moulded elements is another intriguing issue; were they placed with any special tool that could guarantee this geometric condition? One of the contributions of this work to the understanding of the constructive process was the detection of two small depressions on the inside of the pots major fragment, due to the pressure made to attach the moulded elements. From here we can deduce that the clay was still fresh by the time of moulds placement. After, the decoration was engraved with a sharp tool by, has we said before, a very skilled craftsman. The finishing was a thin layer of watered clay, slightly darker than the original clay. The incredible amount of effort and technical complexity to accomplish this small piece of pottery is more close to jewellery than to ceramic production. Just after we concluded this study two identical medallions were found in two different monasteries in the north of Portugal.

Figure 13 Fragments placement and decorative pattern restitution. The last step was the placement of a probable second handle, according to archaeological interpretation, in a symmetric position to the first one. This concluded the virtual reconstruction process and provided a hybrid model merging existing fragments with the geometric shape construction.

H. Pires & P. Ortiz & P. Marques & H. Sanchez / Close-range Laser Scanning Applied to Archaeological Artifacts Documentation. Virtual Reconstruction of an XVIth Century Ceramic Pot.

Maybe these artifacts were produced in a semi-industrial process, what could explain some of the singular geometric characteristics analysed in this study. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the contribution and collaboration of Javier Larrazabal in this work, the kind permission from IPPAR to study this artifact and to Paraglobal, L.da for the use of the Konica-Minolta laser scanner. Last, we would like to express our gratitude to our colleagues at Superfcie, L.da for their support and encouragement. References [Abd03] ABDI H., Least Squares. Encyclopedia of Social Sciences Research Methods. Thousand Oaks, USA (2003); [BM02] BOEHLER W., MARBS A.: 3D Scanning instruments. CIPA, Heritage Documentation. International Workshop on Scanning for Cultural Heritage Recording Corfu, Greece (2002); [DBA*04] DEMIR N., BAYRAM B., ALKIS Z., HELVACI C., ETIN I.: Laser scanning for terrestrial photogrammetry, alternative system or combined with traditional system? XX ISPRS Congress, Istanbul, Turkey (2004); [EB02] EL-HAKIM S. F., BERALDIN, J.-A.: Detailed 3D reconstruction of monuments using multiple techniques. Proceedings of the International Workshop on scanning for cultural heritage recording. Complementing or replacing photogrammetry, Corfu, Greece, (2002); [GVP05] GUARNIERI A., VETTORE M., PONTIN M.: A volumetric approach for 3D surface reconstruction, CIPA 2005 XX International Symposium, Torino, Italy (2005); [GPPV05] GUARNIERI A., PIROTTI F., PONTI M., VETTORE A.: Combined 3D surveying techniques for structural analysis applications. Commission V Symposium, Image Engineering and Vision Metrology, Dresden, Germany (2006); [HCMV05] HARR F. B., CIGNONI P., MIN P., VELTKAMP R. C.: A comparison of systems and tools for 3D scanning. 3D Digital Imaging and Modelling: Applications of Heritage, Industry, Medicine and Land, Workshop Italy-Canada (2005); [KSM05] KAMPEL M., SABLATNIG R., MARA H.: Robust 3D reconstruction of archaeological pottery based on concentric rills. In Magnenat-Thalmann N. and Rindel J. H. (Eds), WIAMIS05: The 6th International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services Montreux, Switzerland, (2005); [Lar06] LARRAZABAL J.: Una taza de cermica fina procedente del convento franciscano de Sto. Antnio de Ferreirim (Lamego). Publicao das actas do VI Encontro de Olaria Tradicional de Matosinhos, Matosinhos, Portugal, (2006);

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