Extracting Scar and Ridge Features from 3D-scanned Lithic Artifacts

We propose a method for computer analysis of 3D-scanned lithic artifacts. It provides a detailed description of the scars and ridges that were left on the surface of the stone tool while it was produced by knapping. Traditional documentation and research methods are based on hand drawn images of stone tools and manual measurements. Our algorithm enables automatic, objective and precise documentation of the tool surface, together with a quantitative analysis of the scar and the ridge networks. The proposed algorithm detects ridges on the surface of the scanned object, segments the surface to scars and calculates features that can be used for clustering and classifying lithic artifacts. We demonstrate our method on various lithic artifacts, present the extracted features and compare the results to traditional hand drawings.