Virtual Restoration of Fragmented Glass Plate Photographs of Archaeological Repertoires

This paper describes a virtual restoration pipeline for the broken glass plates in the fund of the Department of Archaeological, Philological and Historical Studies of Catania University. This archive includes rare images of the excavation activities of the Department in Sicily and Greece. Several of the plates are damaged and fractured and require virtual realignment and restoration. We adapted to this case a restoration algorithm based on the use of image processing techniques. The algorithm enhance the quality of scanned images, and subsequently performs a rigid registration and realignment of the fragments. A final application of inpainting techniques fills the gaps.