Arc-Team "Intervallo" 4

As you notice, ATOR post are getting fewer and fewer in summer time, due to our work on the field: time for a break!

In the meantime we will go on in collecting data and doing test for future post and articles, keeping our "open research" available for everybody!

Stay tuned!

QGIS - Reshape Features

This short Videotutorial shows you the effect of QGIS "Reshape Features" tool on vector lines.
If you have time to clean and smooth vector-lines manually, you can try that possibility.

If you want to keep up always with our latest videos, 

just subscribe our 

You Tube-Chanel:

   

Arc-Team: Open your Mind and share your Knowledge

Arc-Team Archaeology was founded in 2004 as a way to open Archaeology to people through a free & open approach.

Since the first day we have shared our experiences with this type of research with our friends and colleagues.

We are still searching for new horizons and there is no better way than being able to open our mind and share our knowledge.

Let's go on collaborating and sharing our results, our techniques and our experiences!

St. Anthony's day

June, in Padua, is the "mese antoniano" (The month dedicated to St. Anthony) and the day 13 June is the day in which the Saint was born and that the Catholic Church chosed to celebrate him.

Exactly around this period, a couple of years ago (10 June 2014), we presented in Padua the Forensic Facial Reconstruction of the Saint [1], which was performed during the preparation of the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" ("Faces. The many aspects of human history") [2].

Today, with a big delay (sorry, too few time...) I'll go on sharing, with open source licenses, the material we produced for the exhibition and, considering the recurrence (13 June), I'll upload some media regarding the Forensic Facial Reconstruction (FFR) of St. Anthony.

First of all, here is the image of the final model, which is already available on Wikimedia Commons. 

FFR of St. Anthony (final model)

The credit for this image are (in order of work-flow): Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team) and Nicola Carrara (Museum of Anthropology of the University of Padua) for the 3D scanning of the cranial cast of the Saint; Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team) for the main work of digital Forensic Facial Reconstruction; Padre Luciano Bertazzo (Center for St. Anthoni Studies) for the historical validation of the final model. Moreover the project relies on on the previous work of the artist Roberto Cremesini, who produced in 1985 the bronze cast of the skull and the jaw of St. Anthony, used for the digital reconstruction (2014) and on the research directed by Prof. Vito Teribile Wiel Marin, who directed the anthropological study of the skeletal remains in 1981 (with particular attention to the work of Prof. Gino Fornaciari, Francesco Mallegni and Giorgio Ragagnini).

Then I report here the complete presentation we did during the "Giugno Antoniano", as until now in ATOR we just published the second half of the slides (by Cicero Moraes) and never the first one (regarding the digital scanning of the bronze cast done by Roberto Cremesini).

Here below is the presentation, which can be view interactively directly online:

 

Since for some people (due to the default browser) there could be some minor visualization erros, I also recorded a vdeo and uploaded it on our YouTube channel:

Have a nice day!

PS

Since the overall presentation is pretty long, I upload separately here the 3 videos embedded in the slides:

1) The FFR of Alberto da Trento

2) The Forensic Facial Reconstruction process

3) The Forensic Facial Reconstruction of St. Anthony

[1]

ATOR: 1, 2, 3

[2]

AOTR: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Bibliography

[1] 

Il Volto del Santo. La ricostruzione facciale forense di Sant'Antonio di Padova (ResearchGate, Academia)

[2] 

“FACCE. I molti volti della storia umana”: progettare una mostra Open Source basata sulla Computer Vision (ResearchGate, Academia); 

"Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" Una mostra Open Source (ResearchGate, Academia);

"Facce. I molti volti della storia umana". Una mostra che racconta (ResearchGate, Academia)

Intervallo n° 3

As you probably noticed, it is a long time since we wrote the last post, so it is the perfect time for a new "Intervallo", just to say that we are still alive and that we will soon write something new.

I hope you will enjoy this new useless short videoclip :). If you missed the other two (and you have 70 seconds to waste), here are the link: 1, 2.

Have a nice day!

Arc-Team 2015 Iran-Mission: The Video

In June 2015 we had the pleasure to prove our abilities for the first time in the Middle East:

On behalf of the University of Innsbruck - Department of Near Eastern Archaeology, in collaboration with the University of Sistan and Baluchestan and at Iran's Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Tourisms invitation we've documented one of the most important sites of Persian heardland:

The Palace of Ardashir Pāpakan (in Persian: دژ اردشير پاپکان‎‎ Dezh-e Ardashir Pāpakān), also known as the Atash-kadeh .آتشکده

Ardashir, also known as "the Unifier" (180–242 AD), was the founder of the Sasanian Empire. He was the ruler of Estakhr since 206, subsequently Pars Province since 222, and finally "King of Kings of Sasanian Empire" in 224 with the overthrow of the Parthian Empire, ruling the Sasanian Empire until his death in 242. The dynasty ruled for four centuries, until it was overthrown by the Rashidun Caliphate in 651. (Wikipedia)

The building is located two kilometers (1.2 miles) north of the ancient city of Gor.

The palace complex includes a pond, fed by a natural spring.

The structures dimensions are 116 m by 54 m. The three domes are almost 18 m high, the southeastern one is partially collapsed. The structure was built of local rocks and mortar with plasterwork on the insides. 

After positioning the site with DGPS we've documented the building room by room, applying the structure from motion technology, powered by free and open source applications.

In ten days we took about 30.000 pictures from the ground and from our drone, covering the whole building and two Sasanid Rock Reliefs: The Investiture Relief of Ardashir I. and the Equestrian Relief, showing Ardashir's fight against the Parthian king Artabanus V in 224.

Our three minutes long clip sketches the 2015-Mission of "Digital Archaeological Documantation of Iranian Monuments" during all it's phases.

We would particularly like to thank:
Sandra Heinsch-Kuntner
Rouhollah Shirazi
Walter Kuntner
Sasan Darvish Zadeh

Australopithecus sediba

The Australopithecus sediba is another important reconstruction done for the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" [1]. In getting access to the cast and in producing the 3D model of the skull, to start the to work of the facial restitution, we have been supported by Prof. Telmo Pievani, who put us in connection with the exposition "Homo sapiens" (and with its scientific material). Once the digital model of the cranium has been produced with photographic (SfM/MVSR [2]) techniques, +Cícero Moraes could proceed with the protocol we developed about Forensic Facial Reconstruction [4] of Homini (Paleoart) with coherent anatomical deformation of a Pan troglodytes CT scan [3].

In order to go on with the free sharing and disclosure, under open licenses (Creative Commons Attribution International: CC-BY-4.0), of the material we produced during the preparation of the exhibition "Facce", I uploaded today the result of this FFR in Wikimedia Commons.

Here below is the final image, which has been developed thanks to a joned effort of Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team) and Nicola Carrara (Anthropological Museum of the University of Padua), for 3D model of the skull; +Cícero Moraes (Arc-Team) for the main work of 3D FFR modeling; Prof. Telmo Pievani (University of Padua, Biology Department), for scientific validation.

Facial Reconstruction of the Australopithecus sediba

The anatomical deformation technique, used for the facial reconstruction of the Australopithecus sediba, is well illustrated in the following video (by +Cícero Moraes):

Webography

[1] FaceBook, ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, TV7, oggiscienza, Archeomatica

[2] ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

[3] ATOR 1, 2

[4] ATOR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Arcaheological Forensic Facial Reconstruction with FLOSS

Last week the CAA conference 2015 (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology) took place in Siena (Italy). It has been a good occasion to meet old friends, share opinions and speak with colleagues from all over the world.

This year Arc-Team participated with three oral presentations and a poster and, of course, we will share these contributions with free licenses (CC-BY) also in ATOR.
Today I upload the poster, which is self-explanatory, thanks to the text added to summarize our experience with Archaeological Forensic Facial Reconstruction (FFR). If you are a regular reader of ATOR, there will be few news for you about our work, but you will find some extra contents which we had not yet time to share through our blog (e.g. a gallery of some of the reconstructions for the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana"; the video of the FFR of St. Anthony, presented during the "Giugno Antoniano", or the Mocap experiment with Franceso Petrarca).

Here is the poster, I hope you will find it useful:

Poster at CAA 2015 (Siena - Italy)

Have a nice day!

Project Tovel part 1: open geodata

As many of you know, since some years we (Arc-Team) are supporting Prof. Tiziano Camgna's project regarding the underwater forest of Lake Tovel (1, 2) in Trentino (Italy).
In the past days we are asked to give a lesson about our contribution to the project at the Liceo Scientifico Bertrand Russel of Cles (TN, Italy). In order to prepare some data for the event, I started to work on a 3D map of the underwater surface of the lake and,  to collect material for different ArcheOS videotutorials I recorded almost the complete process. For this reason I start today a series of "minipost" to publish this material, hoping that this will be useful for some readers.
In this first minipost I will write about open geodata, which are very important for archaeologists, but also for other professionals. Before to enter the topic, I have to say that we live and work (fortunately for us) in a Italian province (Trentino) which is sensible to this matter (open data). If you can understand Italian, you should read +Maurizio Napolitano's blog, one of the real expert in this field currently working at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler.
During the Project Tovel I needed geographical open data to set up the GIS system with some basic cartography. More specifically I started with the "Carta Tecnica Provinciale" (a technical map of the province), which I downloaded form the "Portale Cartografico Trentino" of the S.I.A.T. (Sistema Informativo Ambientale e Territoriale of the Province Trentino). As you can read in the portal (sorry, just Italian), the C.T.P. (Carta Tecnica Provinciale) is available Under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 terms.
The videotutorial you can see below just show the simple process to access and download these data (in raster or vector) form the webgis service.

I hope this first post was youseful for some of you, have a nice day!

Antrocom NPO patronises the exhibit "FACES. The Many Visages of Human History"

Antrocom nonprofit organization patronises the exhibit FACES. The Many Visages of Human History, which is held in the exhibition halls of the University Centre for Museums in Padua from February 14 to June 14, 2015.

The exhibition is the natural continuation of the Taung Project that, among other activities, also produced the reconstruction of the face of Saint Anthony, which has had great resonance among national and international media.

The faces tell our identity and our history: a personal story, but also the evolutionary history of our species. The face is anatomy, physics, physiology; but it is also a symbol, culture and interpretation.

The aim of the exhibition is to tell the various meanings that a face has and can acquire, thanks to finds and three-dimensional reconstructions of great visual impact. The scientific direction and supervision of the exposure are committed to Telmo Pievani and Nicola Carrara, while the three-dimensional and technological fulfilments are entrusted to Arc-Team and Cicero Moraes.

It is indeed a very special event that does not stop at mere display of artifacts, but it is a moment of reflection on forensic techniques used for the reconstruction of the face and on their scientific methodology. A moment that takes advantage of the most modern information technologies of modelling and sculptural development, with tests based on tomographies and original casts.

The exhibition seeks to reflect on the problems of management, usability and preservation of artifacts, especially if they are very fragile as the finds of biological origin.

Another peculiarity of the exhibition "FACES" is the will of the organizers to spread the potentialities offered by the open source world: not only using softwares with this kind of license, but by sharing the obtained three-dimensional models in an open and transparent way, with the opportunity to improve the realized work by other researchers scattered in different countries.

The exhibition is organized into five main themes:

1 - Let's face the human diversity: our origins through the casts of the main hominin fossils and their facial reconstructions, recreated with special forensic softwares and presented through augmented reality technologies. The exhibit also will present newly discovered species (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus sediba, Homo floresiensis) and, for the first time ever, the facial reconstructions of early hominins came out of Africa about 1.8 million years ago, discovered in Dmanisi site in Georgia (Homo georgicus).
The list of hominins on display:

• Sahelanthropus
• Ardipithecus ramidus
• Kenyanthropus platyops
• Australopithecus afarensis
• Australopithecus africanus (Mrs. Pless and Taung child)
• Australopithecus robustus (Paranthropus robustus)
• Paranthropus boisei
• Australopithecus sediba
• Homo habilis
• Homo ergaster (Turkana boy)
• Homo erectus (H. pekinensis)
• Homo neanderthalensis
• Homo rhodesiensis (H. heidelbergensis)
• Homo heidelbergensis (Bodo)
• Homo floresiensis
• Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon)
• Homo sapiens (Idautu)
• Homo georgicus 1 (classic cast, Zvedza)
• Homo georgicus 2 (old)
• Homo georgicus 3 (Mzia)
• Homo georgicus 5 (2005)

2 - One face, one race? Not really: the concept of "human race" is scientifically inconsistent. For example, the difference in DNA between an African pygmy and a European is only slightly higher than that the one we can observe between two pygmies or between two Europeans: we are all relatives and all different. Humanity is one!

3 - Faces from the past: five faces emerge from time. Five faces linked to, in different ways, the city of Padua. The oldest one belongs to an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Period, whose mummy is preserved at the Museum of Anthropology. After the anticipation of June 10, 2014, the exhibit will propose again the reconstruction of the face of St. Anthony, along with the one of  Blessed Luca Belludi. The exhibition will give to the face of Francesco Petrarca, reconstructed for the first time, a voice to read the sonnet that opens the Canzoniere. The face of Giambattista Morgagni introduces the figure of another illustrious Paduan citizen, considered the father of contemporary pathological anatomy.

4 - The face as a mirror: famous people have dealt with physiognomy and phrenology: for a long time - as many popular sayings declare - it was considered that the moral qualities of a person were reflected in the external appearance, particularly in the visage. Removing the tinsels of old theories, the scientific study of the faces is continued over time because, undeniably, the face says a lot about us and our history, from both a personal and species point of view.

5 - From the face to the mask: the symbolic visage: covering the face is a gesture that distinguishes us from other animals. This is not a refined technique of mimicry because, although masked, we interact with others: the masks are rather fascinating symbolic territories. The masks on display are the most significant of the Museum of Anthropology, coming from different ethnographic collections around the world. Further, the contribution from the precious collaboration with the "Amleto and Donato Sartori" International Museum of the Mask at Abano Terme (Padua) enriches the section.

Informations:

Website: FACES. The Many Visages of Human History (Italian language)
Facebook page: FACES. The Many Visages of Human History

Location and opening time
Exhibition halls of the University Centre for Museums
via Botanical Garden, 15 - Padua
February-March: Monday-Friday 9:00 to 13:00; Saturday and Sunday 9:00 to 17:00
April-June: Monday-Friday 9:00 to 13:00 and 15:00 to 19:00; Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10.00-18.00

Informations and reservations
Bookings Starting from January 12, 2015
Phone: 049 2010270
Website: VivaTicket

Tickets
Full price: € 8,00
Reduced: € 6.00 (employees of the University of Padua, students of all levels, over 65, visitors with full ticket for the Botanical Garden or for the “Amleto and Donato Sartori" International Museum of the Mask  (Abano Terme, Padua)
Reduced for schools: € 4.00

Groups (minimum 10, maximum 20 people): € 6.00
Guided tour for groups (minimum 10, maximum 20 people - mandatory reservation): € 80.00
Guided tours for individuals (mandatory reservation): € 8.00

Presenting the full ticket of the exhibition "FACES. The many visages of human history", you will be entitled to reduced ticket to visit the "Amleto and Donato Sartori" International Museum of the Mask  (Abano Terme, Padua)

Archaeobotany: identification of vegetal macro remains from "Battaglia excavations" in Ledro

In this post I'm going to summarize the work of identification of vegetal non-woody macro remains from the so-called “Battaglia excavations” (1937) in Ledro lake pile dwelling (Tn, Italy).

The materials are stored in the Museum of Anthropology of Padua and appear to be fairly preserved. They are in most cases charred, rarely waterlogged. For this reason the preservation status (and therefore also the morphometric variation and the color) is not uniform.

The work of identification is preliminary to future aDNA studies, in collaboration with Edmund Mach Foundation.

Some of the vegetal remains from Ledro at the Museum of Anthropology of Padua

In the autumn of 1929, when the level of Lake Ledro was appreciably lower than usual, after thousands of years a lake-settlement re-emerged into the light of day. Along the southern shores of the lake a forest of wooden piles (10.000) broke the surface, bearing all the marks of their long immersion. At first they were thought to belong to some long-forgotten sluice built to control the level of the lake, but soon they revealed to be the remains of the largest prehistoric site to have been uncovered hitherto in Italy.

Then the water-level rose once more and all was submerged, until the drought of 1936-37 lowered significantly the level of the lake and enabled further excavation to be undertaken. These are the excavations known as “Battaglia”, from the surname of the archaeological director.

These first researches, made by the University and the archaeological service of Padua, saw the continuation in years ‘50 and ‘60. In the 80s, the Natural Science Museum of Trento realized campaigns of excavations with techniques previously not available, following the stratigraphic criteria and adopting scientific naturalistic methodologies, that allowed the experts to agree in thinking 2,200 BC to 1,350 BC the dates of these pile dwelling life.

For our project (December 2014), the identification of macro remains has been accomplished to the naked eyed and with the help of a microscope for the difficult ones.

For the comparison, illustrated volumes, paper and digital atlas (such as the Digital Atlas of Economic Plants in Archaeology of the Groningen Institute of Archaeology – GIA, University of Groningen and of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut – DAI, Berlin) have been used.

In the analysis, approximately 750 remains have been studied: 533 certain, 24 uncertain and 194 undetermined.

Summary table of the non-woody macro remains

It is possibile to observe a lot of edible plants, some of them cultivated, others wild. Among the cultivated species we can recognize wheat (Triticum monococcum/dicoccum L.) and barley (Hordeum sp. L.). Their seeds are really abundant (in some cases there are also fragments of ears) and show signs of combustion.

Charred cereals

Then there are fruits of hazels (Corylus avellana L.) and oak/holm oak (Quercus sp.), certainly used in alimentation.

Hazels fruits

There are also some fruits belonging to the family Rosaceae, but it wasn't possible to determine gender and species. The small size allow to rule out the possibility of wild apple (Malus domestica) and the spherical shape is not suited to the wild pear (Pyrus communis L.) reported by Battaglia in 1943. One of the most plausible hypothesis is that it is Sorbus sp. L.
The high presence of dogwood (Cornus Mas L.), of which only a part seems to have been preserved at the Museum (Battaglia wrote of an entire layer composed of these seeds, while those remaining are only a hundred), does suggest its use in a massive way in the food field. One hypothesis, with archaeological and ethongraphic evidence, is that the dogwood was fermented to make a low alcohoolic drink. 

 

Dogwood seeds

In addition to fruits and seeds, in the collection we can find some galls of oak (Quercus sp. L.). The gall, or cecidia, is a malformation that may be due to several causes; these galls seem to be originated by an insect, the Cynips quercusfolii. These remains may have been gathered by the lake-dwellers to derive the tannic acid, in which are rich, a substance used in tanning.

Galls of Quercus sp. L.

Extremely fascinating are the plant remains identified as mixtures of cereals, a kind of "dumplings" made by kneading a cereal flour coarsely chopped. The morphology is rounded, the "nuggets" seem to be made by flattening the mixture on the thumb and then cooked on hot stones (another theory, proposed by botanist Della Fior in 1940, which for now is to be considered merely hypothetical not being proven by scientific analysis, is that the internal cavity is the space for a filling of some kind).

The aspect relating to the alimentary economy is really meaningful, in particular the relationship between agricultural practices and gathering of wild vegetables. We can assume a certain balance in the use of both resources. Indeed, the environment offered many food resources that were certainly exploited by the inhabitants. The groups of herbaceous plants that characterize the wet grasslands and ruderal sites still provide an alternative and complementary source of food.

This project has been also an opportunity to make the first tests on geometric morphology techniques in archaeobotany using open-source softwares as MorphoJ. In future we will try to develop and make available these methodologies.

Forensic Facial Reconstruction, the state of the art

As many of you know last week a team of the University of Leicester have publicly revealed to have discovered, in all likelihood, the tomb of Richard III. The results seem comforted by the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, while the discrepancy on the Y chromosome could be explained by a false paternity. The study was completed with a forensic facial reconstruction of the king, performed by the experts of the University of Dundee, led by Caroline Wilkinson, Professor of Craniofacial Identification.

Given the opportunity, I decided to publish here our state of the art on this particular field (forensic facial reconstruction applied to archeology), publishing the presentation that I gave during the study day in honor of Prof. Franco Ugo Rollo (Ascoli Piceno, November 26 2014).

You can see the presentation here below (better visualized at this link)...
 

... and here is a brief explanation of each slide:

SLIDE 1

A remember of Franco Ugo Rollo, professor at the Camerino University. It was not my fortune to know personally Prof. Rollo, but his name is surely well known also in my discipline (archeology).

SLIDE 2

"Digital faces: new technologies for the forensic facial reconstruction of the historical figures".
The presentation intend to be an overview of the digital methodologies of FFR with FLOSS, developed in the last two years on the blog ATOR with a spontaneous contribution of different authors.

SLIDE 3

The traditional work-flow involves several operations: 3D scanning the skull, preparing a replica, performing the anthropological analyses, placing the tissue depth markers, reconstructing the profile, modeling the muscles and skin, calibrating the model with the available sources and dressing it.

SLIDE 4

The same operations are necessary for the digital work-flow. Our main work has been to turn the traditional process into a digital one, using only FLOSS.

SLIDE 5

There are different technology to obtain a 3D digital copy of the original skull. The main two we are using are: SfM - IBM and X-ray CT.

SLIDE 6

IN 2009 Arc-Team perform the first test in applying SfM - IBM with FLOSS to Cultural Heritage, during its participation at the TOPOI excelent cluster of Berlin.

SLIDE 7

The test developed in a collaboration with the French researcher +Pierre Moulon (Université Paris - Est and Mikros Image; actually at Acute3D) to integrate SfM - IBM software in ArcheOS 4 (codename Caersar)

SLIDE 8

The first test (TOPOI Löwe) gave positive results

SLIDE 9

The process is mainly based on different photos with different orientations, computing the displacement of common points between images

SLIDE 10

To complete the 3D documentation of an object, the next step is the so-called mesh-editing, which can be performed in the software MeshLab (developed by the Visual Computing Lab at the ISTI - CNR of Pisa, Italy)

SLIDE 11

In order to validate the digital method of FFR, some unconventional procedures (derived from the hacker culture) have been adopted. With reverse engineering techniques, based on SfM, it has been possible to digitally replicate the process of past FFR projects and to compare the results.

SLIDE 12

The anthropological validation has been performed comparing the result of 3D models obtained with SfM - IBM and the relative results coming form 3D scan (the observed distortion remained in the range of 1 mm).

SLIDE 13

In several projects it is possible to work with DICOM data. In these cases the anthropological analysis is more accurate. (3D VS Voxel)

SLIDE 14

The main software we used for DICOM data is InVesalius, mainly developed at the Renato Archer Information of Technology Center, an institute of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology.

SLIDE 15

"X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) is a technology that uses computer-processed X-rays to produce tomographic images (virtual 'slices') of specific areas of the scanned object, allowing the user to see inside without cutting." (Wikipedia)

SLIDE 16

Also in this case, the process was validated with unconventional procedures derived from hacker culture. With reverse engineering of CT videos it has been possible to rebuild DICOM data and the 3D model of different skulls, replicating FFR projects and comparing the results.

SLIDE 17

It is necessary to check and validate the protocol with a continuous methodological comparisonwith all the available resources. For this reason, we tried also the FFR of Henry the IV, a project in which Prof. Rollo was involved, rejecting (with other scholars) the attribution of the mummified head to the French king. Our test in this case is just an experiment, starting from low quality data, but it is a good example to show some benefits of digital FFR, like the possibility to quickly modify the reconstructed face (e.g. closing the mouth in order to perform superimposition with the death mask), an operation not so simple with tangible models.

SLIDE 18

Once obtained the 3D model, digital anthropological analyses do not differ from traditional ones.

SLIDE 19

In some cases, a virtual restoration of the model is necessary. The solution comes from symmetrical and boolean operations of 3D modeling software (Blender).

SLIDE 20

The whole process of 3D modeling is actually performed in the software Blender.

SLIDE 21

The first operation is to fix the 3D skull on the Frankfurt plane, which replicates the head position of a standing human figure.

SLIDE 22

Than tissue depth markers are placed. The software keeps automatically the correct normal of each marker.

SLIDE 23

In our works, for depth tissue markers, we use the tables of Degreef et alii (2006)

SLIDE 24

A second step is the profile reconstruction.

SLIDE 25

For nose shape we refer to G. Lebedinskaya method.

SLIDE 26

The validation of the method came mainly from the comparison between FFR models and the facial DICOM data of living people, a simple simple with digital techniques, using the software CloudCompaer. All this experiment were conducted ans blind test (the artist did not know the identity and the fisionomy of the people).

SLIDE 27

According to the blind test, main deviations were detected on the cheeks.

SLIDE 28

Like other 3D operations, muscles modeling has been performed in Blender.

SLIDE 29

The technique hes been continuously rationalized and optimize. For instance, once the main muscles are modeled with metaballs in Blender, the result can be reused in successive reconstructions through an anatomical deformation.

SLIDE 30

It is possible to reach more realistic results through specific modeling tools,
like the "sculpt mode" in Blender.

SLIDE 31

Also skin modeling is an operation to be performed in Blender

SLIDE 32

Again the technique has been optimized: In order to simplify and speed up the process, a neutral facial model has been  created.

SLIDE 33

The neutral model can be anatomically deformed on different skulls to meet gender and age dimorphism.

SLIDE 34

At the same time, the neutral model can be deformed to meet the anatomical criteria which determine the individual dimorphism.

SLIDE 35

After the reconstruction process, two main models are defined:  one with hair and one hairless.

SLIDE 36

Thanks to the latest developments of the software MakeHuman it is now possible to further simplify and speed up the technique. Our actual research is following this direction.

SLIDE 37

The first tests carried out in 2014 have yielded positive results, thanks to the new feature which loads base raster images. The software is also perfectly compatible with Blender.

SLIDE 38

A further development of the protocol will allow to obtain high quality forensic facial reconstructions, in less time, without the need to master the techniques of 3D modeling.

SLIDE 39

At the end of the FFR process, the final model is calibrated with historical, archaeological and medical sources.

SLIDE 40

In case of historical reconstructions, the model appearance (hairstyle and clothing) is calibrated depending on era and culture, while the physical characteristics (color of hair and eyes) are set basing on the ancestry.

SLIDE 41

The 3D printing technologies allow the materialization of the model with different levels of detail.

SLIDE 42

A case study: the forensic facial reconstruction of St. Anthony of Padua 

SLIDE 43

The 3D scan was carried out on the bronze cast performed by R. Cremesini in 1981.

SLIDE 44

The cast done by R. Cremesini is very important, because it derives from the temporary anatomical reconnection of the skull and the jaw, which were separated since the first survey of the tomb (1263). 

SLIDE 45 

3D scan has been performed with the SfM - IBM software of the archaeological GNU/Linux distribution ArcheOS.

SLIDE 46

The final model has been presented Tuesday, June 10 at the event "Scoprendo il volto di Antonio" at the Centro Culturale S. Gaetano in PAdua (Italy)  

SLIDE 47 - 50

Digital FFR allows to further define the details of the model to reach a more realistic result.

SLIDE 51

Thanks to the collaboration with the Centro de Tecnologia da Informação Renato Archer - CTI (Ministério da Ciência and Technology do Brasil) the model was printed in 3D.

SLIDE 52

One of the materialized models was repainted by the Brazilian Mari Bueno,
specialized in religious art.

SLIDE 53

Thank you for your attention!


 

QGIS: exporting 3D data in threejs

Hi all,

I go on recording small videotutorial regarding the software in ArcheOS 5 (codename Theodoric), trying to collecting more material for the official documentation.

In order to avoid the creation of "wasted food" (videotutorial which are not connected with a real project risk to be useless because too theoretical and too few practical), I am collecting examples from our (Arc-Team) work.

This time I will show how to export 3D data from QGIS and visualize them in a browser thanks to the nice plugin "Qgis2threejs". I I had the necessity to do this kind of operation just to create some screenshot to complete this very simple illustration that gives a geological overview of the working area:

Of course this is not the only way to collect 3D views (I could do the same in GRASS with Nviz), but this workflow is very fast, for a small project.

Here is the videotutorial (I hope it will be useful):

As ususal, the video is uploaded also in our Digital Archaeological Documentation Project.

Have a nice day!

Arc-Team wins a prize in an international conference in Brazil

Dr. Miamoto and the winner poster

Last week, from September 4th to 6th, the 12th Brazilian Congress of Forensic Dentistry took place in Florianópolis. The biennial event featured conferences and workshops by forensic professionals from Brazil, Uruguay, Peru and USA.

The attendees could also submit poster and short oral presentations to compete for the best academic works awards. The oral presentation "Protocol for Forensic Facial Reconstruction with open software: method simplification using MakeHuman" was one of the winners.

In this work, authors Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team member) and Dr. Paulo Miamoto explained how the application of MakeHuman to forensic facial reconstruction can aid this technique by simplifying and individualizing the anatomic modeling process, as well as allowing the operator to adjust the 3D humanoid template to soft tissue pegs and other objective parameters using the Blender export mode.

The winner poster (in Portuguese)

The method was also presented at one of the official conferences of the event by Dr. Miamoto. Moraes, a 3D Designer, and Miamoto, a Forensic Dentist, are members of the NGO "Brazilian Team of Forensic Anthropology and Legal Dentistry - Ebrafol", a non-profit organization that aims the promotion of Human Rights by applying knowledges of the aforesaid sciences. One of Ebrafol's expectations is provide official forensic units with training on 3D technology using open software.

Originally pubblished at: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/makehuman_for_forensic_face_reconstruction_and_crime_investigation.html

The underwater forest of Lake Tovel

As I wrote in a previous post, since 2005 Arc-Team is supporting Prof. Tiziano Camagna and Andrea Forti in their exploration of the underwater forest located in Tovel Lake (in Trentino - Italy). This project gave us some interesting data to test different techniques for underwater archeology, especially in the documentation field (like the use of SfM and IBM in extreme conditions).

I already reported some results of our experiments in this post and today I would like to publish the complete video we used to extract the 3d geometries of a flooded tree, thanks to the courtesy of Prof. Camagna, who kindly gave me the original record.

To help English reader, I translate here the superimposed text in the initial and final sequences:

"The underwater forest of Tovel Lake" (title)

"A landslide, as claimed by the studies conducted in 1992 by Oetheimer, caused the damming of the then envoy in 1597-1598, resulting in rising waters at the present level, submerging the forest located in the northeast of the lake" (intro)

"A photograph of the early '900 shows a tree of considerable size emerging from the water surface. This video shows the same tree today still firmly planted with its roots at the bottom of the lake." (intro)

"The under water forest of Tovel Lake;

people who participated in the making of the video:

Tiziano Camagna, Andrea Forti, Nicola Maganzini, Samuele Sozzi, Nadia Morani and Arc-Team (Cles) - Luca Bezzi and Alessandro Bezzi.

Video recorded with gopro hero 2.

Diving equipment.

Drysuits: Santi, Parisi; Computers: VR3 Delta P, Sunto; Lights: Scubatech, Fa&Me; Regulators: Apeks TXT 200, Interspiro Divator; Scuter: Suex; 

Gas blender: Tiziano Camagna, Andrea Forti

Special thanks to: the Municipality of Tuenno and the Adamello-Brenta Park

Video recorded in 2012" (credits) 

Currently Prof. Camagna started again with the exploration, while we will join him at the end of September (after +Alessandro Bezzi will return from the archaeological mission in Armenia). Soon we will post news and other reports regarding the project. 

Have a nice day!

Polygontool

Hi all,

this fast post is intended to be an overview of the new open source software Polygontool, an application our friend +Szabolcs Köllö (aka +keulemaster) developed for Arc-Team. This tool is helping us in defining an automatic data processing protocol, in order to directly convert raw data files (collected with RTK GPS or total station during survey campaigns) into GIS readable formats. Currently the tool is under an hard test phase, being used during an interreg project (leaded by +Rupert Gietl) about the Great War between the Austrian and Italian border, but it had already positive effects on our work-flow, reducing the time expensive operations of manual data processing. The short video below is a demo to explain how the software works and what it can do.

The source code (in Python) can be found on github and it is already usable (if you want to test it) and open to contributions (if you want to help us in the development). Currently the configuration files (in the "config" folder) are optimized for our interreg project, but you can, of course, modify the terminology to make them fit to any other archaeological database.

Soon I will post other reports about Polygontool. By now I hope this preview will be useful for some of you (and maybe for us, if someone will join the project).

Have a nice day!

Il Volto del Santo (the Face of the Saint)

As part of the celebrations of the "mese antoniano" (the month that the city of Padua dedicates to S. Anthony), on 10 June will be held an evening focused on the historical figure of Fernando Martins de Bulhões (S. Anthony). 

The event will take place in Padua at the auditorium of the Cultural Center Altinate / S. Gaetano and will point the attention to the presentation of the forensic facial reconstruction of the Saint.  
The conference will begin at 20:45.

The "Giugno Antoniano 2014" logo

The invited speakers are:

 +Luca Bezzi, archaeologist at Arc- Team Ltd., was involved in the three-dimensional documentation of the mortal remains of the Saint (the starting point for the facial reconstruction).

 +Cícero Moraes , digital artist at Arc- Team Ltd., has performed the forensic reconstruction, using the most modern protocols.

Father Luciano Bertazzo, director of the Centro Studi Antoniani, one of the leading experts in the figure of the Saint. 

Nicola Carrara, curator of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Padua and creator of the exhibition "Faces. The many aspects of human history", the event that led to the forensic facial reconstruction of St. Anthony.

During the evening will be shown the 3D documentation techniques applied to skeletal remains, the forensic reconstruction protocols, the relationship between the classical iconography and physiognomy returned by modern technologies and, finally , will be given a preview of the exhibition "Faces. The many aspects of human history, " which will take place in October 2014 (visit the FaceBoook page!).

 

The poster of the event

Here is possible to download the leaflet of the "Giungno Antoniano 2014". The entrance is free, we wait you there!

2016-04-28 Updated

For who is interested, we wrote an article (in Italian) about the Forensic Facial reconstruction of St. Anthony:

"Il volto del Santo. La ricostruzione facciale forense di S. Antonio da Padova" (here in ResearchGate and here in Academia)

QuantumGIS and OpenJump: Photomapping with more pictures (Corte Inferiore method)

Hi all,
i would like to share a new method to realize georeferenced 2D-photomosaic. Thanks to the new version of OpenJump (r3856), now it is possible to export the GIS-view to any kind of resolution (no more block to 3800 width-pixel). Just set in the oj_linux.sh file (OpenJump bin folder) the allowed memory in the line 24

JAVA_MAXMEM=${JAVA_MAXMEM--Xmx2048M}

with 2048M my computer can export GIS-view till the value of 6905 width-pixel. More memory gives more resolution.

This is the videotutorial:

and this an example:

High mountain archaeology: Frozen Stories

In the last years we (Arc-Team) had to deal with an increasing number of missions or emergency interventions in high mountain environment, so that our team started to specialized in this new branch of archeology. 

High mountain archeology is strictly connected with climate changes for mainly two reasons: 

1) the actual global warming implicates the retreat of glaciers and the subsequent discovery of artifacts and ecofacts, which have been preserved by the ice until now

2) artifacts and ecofatcs released by the glacier melting phenomenon are a fundamental source of informations regarding climate change itself (epsecially from the point of view of paleoclimatology)

The emergency interventions are caused by the preservation problems connected with the organic material of many archaeological finds, which, once freed from ice, begin to deteriorate very quickly. Moreover many areas of discovery are threatened by landslides of the rocks, which in few days cover the new empty space let by the glacier retreat.

The main problems of an high mountain archaeological mission regard logistic difficulties. As an example, the video below shows the landing during the intervention we did to recover some ecofacts in the Oetztal (AT) in 2012.

  

In this particular mission we had to deal with the limited internal space of the helicopter, which threatened to affect the number of "airborne archaeologists" and the amount of different equipment, necessary for the field-work. In fact, for this project (a fast one-day operation), we planned a strategy based on the redundancy of the instruments (in a similar way to an underwater archeology mission), so that it would have been possible to change methodology in case of unforeseen problems. More specifically or first plan was to georeference all the archaeological finds documentations, based on different techniques (2D photomosaic, 3D SfM models, etc...), using our RTK GPS, while the B-plan was simply to set up a local coordinate system with our total station. Following the first axiom of Murphy's laws (Anything that can go wrong — will go wrong), we could not use directly the GPS, because the area of archaeological interest was completely shielded by mountains and the satellite signal, as well as the radio signal from the base station to the rover, was accessible only on the top of the surrounding picks. To avoid this problem we climbed on one of these picks and placed two fixed points with the rover on the ridge which was closets to the area of interest (without any optical occlusion). In this way, at a later time, we could use the total station to document the archaeological evidences, georeferencing the directly on the UTM system.

Alessandro Bezzi placing a fixpoint with the GPS rover

After this mission, we learned to not underestimate logistic problems in high mountain archaeological project and to study alternative solutions for emergency cases (mainly based on equipment redundancy). 

This long premise is intended to be an introduction to the main topic of this post: the exhibition "FROZEN STORIES - Discoveries in the Alpine glaciers", which will take place in the city of Bolzano/Bozen/Bulsan, hosted in the  South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology (where is preserved the mummy of Similaun, Oetzy) form 22 /02/2014 till 22/02/2015. 

The poster of the exhibition

If you plan to pay a visit to the exhibition, among other (more) interesting things, you could see some of our high mountain archaeological expeditions :)

PS
The Arc-Team contribution to the exhibition is mainly based on the Langrub Joch project, in which I did not participate directly, but that was lead by +Alessandro Bezzi, +Rupert Gietl and +Giuseppe Naponiello, under the scientific direction of Dr. Subert Steiner of the Archaeological Office of the Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano / Autonome Provinz Suedtirol. Maybe one of my colleagues will write a post about this project in the feature.