VR System for the Restoration of Broken Cultural Artifacts on the Example of a Funerary Monument

We present a VR system that supports the restoration of broken cultural artifacts. As a case study, we demonstrate this approach for the restoration of a funerary monument. Among the challenges of this monument are a large number of 415 fragments, an unknown amount belongs to another artifact, missing pieces prevent a full reconstruction and the preserved fragments vary strongly in size. Our VR system supports the workflow of digital restoration by offering a configurable self-arranging fragment wall. It supports the user to organize all fragments in an overview representation and to identify relevant fragments quickly. For assembly, we implemented a jigsaw approach comprising two sets of manipulation techniques that allow the user to roughly align fragments first in sub-puzzles and precisely assemble them in a second step. The iterative development and assembling process was accompanied by a professional restorer. We report about the insights we gained from this process and how we optimized the VR system according to her requirements and feedback. Within 14 sessions that took 21 hours, the virtual reconstruction was finalized.