Solving archaeological puzzles

Niv Derech, Ayellet Tal, Ilan Shimshoni

Abstract: Highlights•In the paper we propose a novel approach for solving puzzles whose pieces are of general shape, which need not necessarily match precisely due to erosion, and which have degraded unevenly over time.•We define the notion of valid transformations and propose a method of sampling them. This method may find uses in other domains.•We define a novel dissimilarity score that takes into account the special characteristics of the domain.•We introduce the notion of confidence in the dissimilarity scores, which depends not only on the value of the dissimilarity, but also on those of the competing matches. Confidence may be used not only in re-assembly, but also in other applications that are based on dissimilarity.