Quick Amphora Profiling. Roman Types EFG

This application enables us to create 3D models from ordinary archaeological line drawings of vessel profiles. In particular, it creates 2D outlines of amphoras (two-handled clay jars used for maritime transport all across the Mediterranean for thousands of years) in a step-by-step way that allows them to be automatically converted into 3D models. The results can be used for various kinds of typological modelling, as well as for calculating useful data about an amphora's capacity (how much it could hold), its centre of gravity (when empty or full), points at which it was more likely to break given its shape, and likely behaviour when loaded into the hold of a ship.

This particular application considers Roman amphoras (especially those circulating in the western Mediterranean during the Roman imperial period) and takes advantage of an excellent typological resource of line drawings by Penny Copeland that was created by the University of Southampton and archived with the UK Archaeology Data Service.

For each scanned drawing of an amphora, we would like people to calibrate the drawing to establish its correct dimensions, and draw a couple of very simple lines to assist us with further automatic processing of the scanned line drawings.

These steps should take no more than a couple of minutes per amphora in total.

This project is on behalf of:

Find the code on GitHub