ArchAIDE Presentation @ EUROGRAPHICS on Graphics and Cultural Heritage 2016

ARCHAIDE
ARCHAELOGICAL AUTOMATIC
INTERPRETATION AND
DOCUMENTATION OF CERAMICS
Gabriele Gattiglia
Dept. Archeologia, Univ. of Pisa
Roberto Scopigno
Visual Computing Lab, ISTI – CNR, Pisa, Italy

ArchAIDE
 An EC H2020 project
 Call Reflective 6, RIA (Research and Innovation
Action)
 Project Started on June 1st, 2016
 Duration: 36 months, end on May 31st 2019
 Partners:
 Archaeology (academia): Pisa U. – Archaeology Dept.
(coordinator), U. of York – ADS, U. Cologne, U. of Barcelona
 Archaeology (SME): BARAKA, ELEMENTS
 Technology (research): CNR-ISTI, Tel Aviv U.
 Technology (SME): INERA
R. Scopigno, ArchAIDE Proj, EG GCH2016 1

ArchAIDE - Overall goal
 Support interpretation
and documentation of
archaeological
excavations, as much as
possible near in space
and time to the
excavation field/action
 Interpr. & docum. often
implemented in a
second time, in lab
 Based on personal
experience and
consultation of printed
catalogues

ArchAIDE - Overall goal (2)
 We want to innovate the archaeological practice,
introducing a modern computer-aided approach
but we want to keep as much as possible unchanged the
overall methodology, to ensure easy adaptation and impact
in the archaeology domain.
“Change everything to maintain the tradition”
[Tomasi di Lampedusa, “Il Gattopardo”]

Interpretation of archaelogical data
 Interpretation of findings (usually pottery sherds) is
of paramount importance for the interpretation of the
excavation results, identification of the layers and to take
further decisions on the excavation progress and directions
 To be effective, as early this phase is solved, the better
 Vast knowledge and experience is required (but often
practical excavations are performed by young personnel)
 Nowadays study and interpretation of sherds is mostly
performed in a remote location, where the archaeologist
is able to consult heavy and complex catalogues of
ceramics artifacts
 Our goal: keep the same consolidated approach, but:
(1) support interpretation with a computer assisted approach and
(2) automatize & speedup the documentation process

Sherds & Ceramics Catalogues
 Analysis of sherds:
(a) the identification of the
ceramic class, the specialist
• looks at the surface treatment,
• looks at the decoration (if
present)
• looks at the fabric (paste), i.e.
the clay body of the vessel
composed of matrix and
inclusions

Sherds & Ceramics Catalogues
(b) identification of the form
type:
• looks into the ceramic class
paper catalogues for the
specific form;
• analyses the section of the
potsherd and its profile;
• makes a comparison with the
published vessels (hundreds
of pages and drawings)

R. Scopigno, ArchAIDE Proj, EG GCH2016
The pipeline
7

The future ArchAIDE platform
 The ArchAIDE System is designed mainly for a mobile use
(recognition, quantification, raw data entry in an archive)
with some specific functionalities designed for a computer
desktop environment
 Interpretation based on reconstruction (from photos) of
the 2D profile and shape matching, with an app for
tablets
 All data gathered is immediately stored on an archive
(ADS-compliant)
 Documentation gathering is started form the very
initial phases, as an incremental process

+
You can fill in the field with
data you know.
The more information you are
able to fill in, the more the
system will narrow the scope
of the search
You can add more than one
picture
SeARCH
ArchAIDE pottery recognition
A useful way of using ArchAIDE
could be as an universal pottery
database.
You could have the possibility of
making a search using the
aforementioned fields. For
example, you can ask the
system for all the amphorae
produced in Spain during the II
century A.D.

Ingredients and research goal (1)
Structural components:
 Digitize the corpus of catalogues
 Digitize paper catalogues, detect text and images, link
them semantically
 Convert profile images from raster to vectorial format
(adequate for subsequent shape–based
search&retrieval)
 Design the overall data archive:
 Digitized catalouge corpus
 Documentation of acheo campaigns
 Design the ArchAIDE app (mobile platform)

Ingredients and research goal (2)
 Research on algorithms:
• Focus on technologies for the digitization of paper
catalogues, to convert paper document in digital format (solving
problems as digitization, OCR, detection of figures) and how to
enable the semi-automatic conversion of raster drawings into
a geometric 2D description of each ceramic class (based on
drawings and profiles)
• Construction of sherds profiles from a few images: not an easy
task, the profile is never completely visible in a single image,
how to produce it (without building a 3D model)?
• Efficient and robust algorithms and data structure for supporting
the search by similarity of a fragments description with respect
to the database of profiles recollected from catalogues
• Validate on the field (SMEs)

Concluding remarks
 We have just started,
keep posted on our progress:
https://www.facebook.com/archaideproject/
ArchAIDE web site will be opened very soon

Questions?
 Contact:
Visual Computing Lab
of ISTI - CNR
http://vcg.isti.cnr.it
r.scopigno@isti.cnr.it
 Remember to submit to: ACM
Journ. on Computing and
Cultural Heritage (JOCCH)
http://jocch.acm.org/

ArchAIDE Presentation @ EUROGRAPHICS on Graphics and Cultural Heritage 2016

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