Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM) is a fairly new technique employed by archaeologists and it has furthered research at a well-known Brazilian rock art site, Avencal 1, revealing details not previously detected. An article outlining the work has just been published in Internet Archaeology and it contains an interactive viewer which enables readers to explore the rock art panels for themselves, including altering lighting conditions.
The viewer was developed by colleagues at the Visual Computing Lab at Pisa who are also developing the 3DHOP application for use by the ADS. This is the first time the viewer has been used in a peer-reviewed journal, and demonstrates once again the capabilities of publishing in Internet Archaeology over many other journals.
Phil Riris (Southampton, UK) and Rafael Corteletti (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil) applied the technique to a series of ‘blank’ panels and revealed undocumented geometric designs as well as being able to identify differences in how the engravings were produced as well as potential sequencing.
