6533b831fe1ef96bd1298716

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Toward a virtual reconstruction of an antique three-dimensional marble puzzle

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International audience; Abstract | Introduction | Related Work | Acquisition Setup, Proposed Prototype: Calibration and Visibility | Preprocessing of Scanned Three-Dimensional Fragment Data | Processing of Scanned Three-Dimensional Surface Data: Matching | Conclusion and Future Works | Appendices | Acknowledgments | ReferencesAbstract. The reconstruction of broken objects is an important field of research for many applications, such as art restoration, surgery, forensics, and solving puzzles. In archaeology, the reconstruction of broken artifacts is a very time-consuming task due to the handling of fractured objects, which are generally fragile. However, it can now be supported by three-dimensional (3-D) data acquisition devices and computer processing. Those techniques are very useful in this domain because they allow the remote handling of very accurate models of fragile parts, they permit the extensive testing of reconstruction solutions, and they provide access to the parts for the entire research community. An interesting problem has recently been proposed by archaeologists in the form of a huge puzzle composed of a thousand fragments of Pentelic marble of different sizes found in Autun (France), and all attempts to reconstruct the puzzle during the last two centuries have failed. Archaeologists are sure that some fragments are missing and that some of the ones we have come from different slabs. We propose an inexpensive transportable system for 3-D acquisition setup and a 3-D reconstruction method that is applied to this Roman inscription but is also relevant to other applications.