Abstract
Structure-from-motion and multiview-stereo together offer a computer vision technique for reconstructing detailed 3D models from overlapping images of anything from large landscapes to microscopic features. Because such models can be generated from ordinary photographs taken with standard cameras in ordinary lighting conditions, these techniques are revolutionising digital recording and analysis in archaeology and related subjects such as palaeontology, museum studies and art history. However, most published treatments so far have focused merely on this technique's ability to produce low-cost, high quality representations, with one or two also suggesting new opportunities for citizen science. However, perhaps the major artefact scale advantage comes from significantly enhanced possibilities for 3D morphometric analysis and comparative taxonomy. We wish to stimulate further discussion of this new research domain by considering a case study using a famous and contentious set of archaeological objects: the terracotta warriors of China's first emperor.
Highlights
Structure-from-motion and multiview-stereo (SfMeMVS) together constitute a computer vision approach to creating 3D colour-realistic models from a series of overlapping digital photographs (Szeliski, 2011)
SfMeMVS are revolutionising the nature of recording and analysis of archaeological artefacts, sites and landscapes (Ducke et al, 2011; Remondino et al, 2012; Verhoeven et al, 2012; Olson et al, 2013), with similar reverberations in related subjects such as paleontology, art history and museum studies
3.20 GHz CPU, a head-and-shoulders model of a warrior from ca.25 photographs takes a few minutes to complete while a model of a full warrior from ca.100 photographs takes several hours, excluding model clean-up and simplification
Summary
Structure-from-motion and multiview-stereo (SfMeMVS) together constitute a computer vision approach to creating 3D colour-realistic models from a series of overlapping digital photographs (Szeliski, 2011). We would stress a further key application that has received little or no archaeological attention to date, but which will have important implications for a core archaeological endeavour: the classification of artefacts. We consider this opportunity below with reference to the Qin terracotta warriors, perhaps. Our preliminary study below draws on a selection of warriors from the most extensively investigated part of the complex and the most widely known group of terracotta warriors, Pit 1, and is part of an ongoing cooperative project studying the construction methods and logistical organisation underpinning the terracotta army and Qin Shihuang mausoleum complex, especially from the perspective of materials science, shape analysis and spatial modelling Our preliminary study below draws on a selection of warriors from the most extensively investigated part of the complex and the most widely known group of terracotta warriors, Pit 1, and is part of an ongoing cooperative project studying the construction methods and logistical organisation underpinning the terracotta army and Qin Shihuang mausoleum complex, especially from the perspective of materials science, shape analysis and spatial modelling (e.g. Li et al, 2011; Martinon-Torres et al, 2013; Bevan et al, 2013; Li et al, 2014)
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