I have the capability to do this already in hand - using off-the- shelf, obsolete past-generation technology. So, the capability has been around for a long time, but I have found to my utter shock that archaeologist are violently opposed to 3-D imaging. After eight years of preaching the imaging analysis mantra, I've never been asked to apply this capability to the kind of 3-D problem presented. So I've limited my work to 3-D reconstruction problems looking through the microscope, but both in theory and in practice the method applies to artifact piles in rooms or distributions of celestial galaxies. It's a trivialmatter of scale, but with simple calibration, it's no problem. I use ImagePlus II which is the model T ford of interactive image analysis systems. Once the system is in hand, the processing of 3-D data is cost-efficient, i.e. dirt cheap, no pun intended. The process is simple. A TV camera generated image (from "live" objects - i.e. in situ, or a photo or an SEM output signal, etc.) is grabbed and digitized automatically by my computer in about 2 seconds - not tracing on digitizing boards, direct grabber. Images can be processed, edited, cut up, combined, etc. Sequences of images can be stacked into serial sections into the three dimensional image of an object or a pile of objects stripped layer by layer. The 3-D image can then be rotated 360 degrees on any axis. You can look from above, below, behind, and even inside out. It can also be sectioned to any level - ie. computer dissections. The computer also measures size and shape of each object by any number of parameters - upwards of 20 to 30 different parameters per object. For clusters, it also measures clusters by frequency per unit area, percent of area covered by objects, preferred orientation, frequency of similar neighbors and a whole host of such things. I have aready done things at small scale at the rate like 150 individual objects a day, clusters of 2000 objects in a day. With optimum prepration I can process as many as 5,000 objects a week with upwards of a million measurements. Nothing is ever near optimum and I do get bleary- eyed and have to rest occasionally, but I've generated the equilavent of 100,000 measures per week on large collections of objects. So far, I've never been asked to do a pile of archaeological stuff as a tesselated mosaic - but it's done every day. Fact is, I'm not talking fantasy land here, or NASA level computers. This stuff is done in desktop PC's and commercially they are called virtual reality games. Why shouldn't it apply cheaply and easily to archaeology. It does, of course. If the photos are good quality, in optimum computer vision, it's a piece of cake. Actually photos are too expensive. Direct videotaping is much better for two reasons. A $3 video cassette holds as many images as $200 - $300 worth of film photography. Video tape image IS a TV camera image which is grabbed and digitized directly by the computer. Contact me directly for more information, references, who has such systems available to support archaeological research and at least one guy who is starting a consulting business devoted to doing 3-D imaging in archaeology. Irv Rovner [log in to unmask] Phone: 919-515-2491 FAX: 919-515-2610