Virtual reconstruction of cultural heritage artifacts

Museums and other cultural heritage custodians are interested in digitizing their collections, not only for the sake of preserving cultural heritage, but also to make the information content accessible and affordable to researchers and the general public. Once an objects digital model is created it can be digitally reconstructed to its original uneroded or unbroken shape or realistically visualized using different historical materials. Some artifacts are so fragile that they cannot leave the carefully controlled light, humidity, and temperature of their storage facilities, thus they are already inaccessible to the public, and the viable alternative is their exhibition in the form of an augmented reality scene. We present a sophisticated measurement and processing setup, which we have developed, to enable the construction of physically correct virtual models. This setup is illustrated on the reconstruction of one of the best known Celtic artifact from the European Iron Age period to its original uncorrupted form.