Earthenware Reconstruction Based on the Shape Similarity among Potsherds

Masayoshi Kanoh¹, Shohei Kato² and Hidenori Itoh¹

¹Nagoya Institute of Technology, Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8555, Japan
²Toyota National College of Technology, 2-1 Eisei-cho, Toyota 471-8525, Japan

(Received August 13, 2000; Accepted January 29, 2001)

Keywords: Earthenware Reconstruction, Pattern Analysis, Computer Graphics, Graphical Visualization

Abstract. This paper proposes an earthenware reconstruction system, which can automatically reconstruct some earthenware from numerous given potsherds in two dimensional grayscale images. The system supposes that given potsherds are thin and moderately flat and small. Some earthenware having three dimensional shape, such as crocks, can be reconstructed by the system within the supposition. The system performs earthenware reconstruction through two phases. At the first phase, potsherds are joining automatically in two dimensions. An efficient joint detection algorithm is proposed at the phase. At the second phase, three dimensional shape is recovered by adequate three dimensional transformation. In this paper, some experimental results of reconstruction from numerous potsherds are also reported.