Technical Report Pattern Recognition and Image Processing Group Institute of Computer Aided Automation Vienna University of Technology Favoritenstr. 9/1832 A-1040 Vienna AUSTRIA Phone: +43 (1) 58801-18351 Fax: +43 (1) 58801-18392 E-mail: mara@prip.tuwien.ac.at URL: http://www.prip.tuwien.ac.at/ PRIP-TR-103 14. February 2006 Documentation of Rotationally Symmetric Archaeological Finds by 3D Shape Estimation Hubert Mara Abstract Tens of thousands of fragments of ceramics (called sherds for short) are found at every ar- chaeological excavation site and have to be documented for further archaeological research. The traditional documentation is based on the profile line, which is the intersection of the sherd along the axis of symmetry in the direction of the rotational axis. Traditionally this is done by experts by manually drawing the profile line, using dif- ferent tools like a Profilkamm (profile comb), flexible wires, circle- templates, etc. to estimate the axis of rotation and the profile line. The traditional drawing is error prone and time consuming, therefore a semiautomatic method using a Profilograph was introduced to increase accuracy. Since the measurement is still manually, the time for drawing was not decreased. We propose a fully automatic system for the estimation of the rotational axis and the profile line. For data-acquisition we are using acquisition methods based on the principle of structured light, which have also been compared in respect to accuracy and performance to traditional methods of documentation. Based on continuous experiments and comparisons we show a new method for estimation of the rotational axis and the profile line, which is inspired by traditional archaeological methods. The methods shown in this thesis were tested on synthetic and real data. The ex- periments with real data were done at the archaeological excavation in Tel Dor in Israel. The results for estimation of the profile line and the comparison between the manual drawings, the Profilograph and the 3D- acquisition by structured light are shown in this thesis. Furthermore methodological experiments of geometrical surface analysis are shown, which demonstrate the possibility of estimation of ancient manufacturing techniques of ceramics. Finally an outlook towards detection of lines and analysis of painted ceramics is given.