Acquisition and visualization of cross section surface characteristics for identification of archaeological ceramics

This paper describes a new system for digitizing ceramic fabric reference collections and a preliminary evaluation of its applicability to archaeological ceramics identification. An important feature in the analysis of ceramic fabrics is the surface texture of the fresh cross section. Visibility of surface characteristics and fabric constituents on images strongly improves with the facility to rotate a sample or vary the angle of illumination. Interactive online catalogues, showing these variations using sequences of images, offer the means to imitate visual examination of the real sample. Accordingly, we have developed a system for automatic acquisition of image sequences and software to show and interact with the sequences on the web. Our system improves the visualization of the fabric characteristics to a substantial degree and may encourage the scientific use of online image reference collections. Furthermore, this system is applicable to other material where visual surface characteristics are important for identification