Guestpost: “glass reconstruction in 3D”

This article is a guest article by Martin Wagner. In it, he presents some reconstructions of glass objects that were reconstructed in AutoCAD.

Glass is a particularly fragile material that is usually found in a very shattered state during excavations. It is rare that a complete vessel can be reconstructed from the fragments found. The properties of the material, its colour and transparency in particular, meant that the vessels had and still have a great aesthetic appeal, which can only be reproduced fragmentarily and incompletely by the assembled original. One way of presenting the vessels in their entirety and reviving the pieces’ former radiance is through virtual reconstruction. This is particularly widely used in museums.

Virtual Glass

With the help of virtual reconstruction, different light and lighting scenarios can be played out, because it is precisely the relationship between glass and light that makes the material particularly attractive even today. However, the reconstruction goes far beyond the purely illustrative character. Thanks to various functions, the objects can be measured on the computer and placed in their respective context, which no longer exists.

Here are three small examples. The virtual reconstruction of the medieval vessels, which was created using the AutoCAD software, perfectly conveys the aesthetic appeal of the material that has been popular for thousands of years.

Three different vessels from the 15th to 17th centuries were reconstructed:

• Angster bzw. Kuttrolf with an onion-shaped belly and three twisted necks
• frühneuzeitlicher Becher mit Rillenzier made of green glass
• Nuppenbecher (Krautstrunk, Warzenbecher) with upward-drawn tip nubs made of blue-green glass

All image rights for the images shown here are held by Martin Wagner.