Software (along with specialist hardware such as scanners and photogrammetric cameras), is available for piecing together fragments. A specialist system of 3d scanning and matching was used for the most recent reconstruction of the Parthenon, which managed to put back many of the fallen stones int he right places, despite some ofthe previously reconstrcuted stones having been recut to fit them in the wrong places. I have also hard that some of the shredded or torn up Stasi files have been reconstructed by scanning individual fragments and computer matching the shape of the tears.

Gary vines


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Lyle E. Browning
Sent: Tue 4/14/2009 1:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TV Software Question
 
A couple of weeks ago I watched an episode of CSI NY. A memory stick  
cover had been stomped and was in pieces. Each piece of it was scanned  
and software manipulated it and put it back together.

Is this totally Hollywood or is this a potentially wonderful reality  
for those of us who have excavated kilns for the edification of our  
archaeological souls as a former mentor phrased it and have thousands  
of potshards to mend?

Lyle Browning, RPA