Every archaeological excavation must deal with a vast number of ceramic fragments. The documentation, administration and scientific processing of these fragments represent a temporal, personnel, and financial problem. We are developing a documentation system for archaeological fragments based on their profile, which is the cross-section of the fragment in the direction of the rotational axis of symmetry. Hence the position of a fragment (orientation) on a vessel is important. To achieve the profile, a 3d-representation of the object is necessary.

This talk gives an overview about an automated archivation process and shows an algorithm for the registration of the front and the back views of rotationally symmetric objects without using corresponding points. The method proposed uses the axis of rotation of fragments to bring two range images into alignment. Hence the estimation of the registration parameters can be subdivided into the following necessary steps: image acquisition, calibration, axis estimation and registration. For each step the achieved accuracy and results are presented.