Photo Masking Lower Hardres Palstaves

This application enables the creation of a high quality 3D model of an archaeological artefact via process known as photo-masking. There has been a revolution in 3D modelling in recent years and it is now relatively easy to construct such models from ordinary digital photographs. Isolating the object depicted in these photographs, and masking out the background, is an important first step to achieving high quality results. The final 3D model will be made publicly available and is useful not only for basic documentation purposes, but also for graphical displays in museums, for inclusion in gaming and virtual reality environments, or for identifing different sub-styles in otherwise similar types of artefact (that might tell us about the date of the artefact, where it was made, or by whom).

This particular photo-masking application is dedicated to a hoard found in Lower Hardres, Canterbury. A hoard is an archaeological term for a group of valuable objects that have been buried in the ground together, often seemingly with the intention of later being recovered by its owners. This particular hoard includes five Bronze Age palstaves.

We would like people to draw a polygon around the palstave that they see in each photograph in order to identify its outline and exclude the image background. This allows the 3D modelling process to concentrate on the object itself and ignore irrelevant background information.

If you are interested in what a 3D completed model looks like, please have a look at the example here for a MicroPasts palstave model.

Thank you!

Hugh Fiske, Jeff Okazaki, Melissa Vette Wobig, Joseph Koivisto, Dina Fathalla, Nina Sharman, Jane Fellows, Swantje Dogunke, Denis Antoine, Heidi Lund, Tim Matteson, Raest Wylde, Eleni Papaioannou, Maragkaki Froso, Maria Christakou, Christopher Wai, Susan Magyarody, Danielle Haigh-Wood, Erik Paul Zuber, Kiyoko Nishi, Van C. Vives and other anonymous contributors for completing this application

This project is on behalf of:

Find the code on GitHub