Sherds, as the most common artifacts uncovered during archaeologicalexcavations, carry rich information about past human societies so need to beaccurately reconstructed and recorded digitally for analysis and preservation.Often hundreds of fragments are uncovered in a day at an archaeologicalexcavation site, far beyond the scanning capacity of existing imaging systems.Hence, there is high demand for a desirable image acquisition system capable ofimaging hundreds of fragments per day. In response to this demand, we developeda new system, dubbed FIRES, for Fast Imaging and 3D REconstruction of Sherds.The FIRES system consists of two main components. The first is an optimallydesigned fast image acquisition device capable of capturing over 700 sherds perday (in 8 working hours) in actual tests at an excavation site, which is oneorder-of-magnitude faster than existing systems. The second component is anautomatic pipeline for 3D reconstruction of the sherds from the images capturedby the imaging acquisition system, achieving reconstruction accuracy of 0.16milimeters. The pipeline includes a novel batch matching algorithm that matchespartial 3D scans of the front and back sides of the sherds and a new ICP-typemethod that registers the front and back sides sharing very narrow overlappingregions. Extensive validation in labs and testing in excavation sitesdemonstrated that our FIRES system provides the first fast, accurate, portal,and cost-effective solution for the task of imaging and 3D reconstruction ofsherds in archaeological excavations.<br
