vesuvius surface detection
Some ancient scrolls are too fragile to open, but that doesn’t mean we can’t read them
The library at the Villa dei Papiri is one-of-a-kind: it’s the only classical antiquity known to survive. But when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, most of its scrolls were turned into carbonized bundles of ash. Nearly 2,000 years later, many are still sealed shut, too delicate to unroll and too complex to decode. I built a model to segment the scroll’s surface in CT scans, a critical step in revealing the texts hidden inside.
Physical unrolling would destroy the scrolls, and today’s digital methods can handle only the easy parts, like clean, well-spaced layers. But the tightest, most tangled areas are often where the real discoveries hide. To recover those, we need better segmentation to handle noise and compression without distorting the scroll's shape.
I worked with real 3D CT data from the previous Vesuvius Challenge, which uncovered passages from sealed scrolls, including an ancient book title revealed for the first time. my model’s job is to trace the scroll’s surface as it winds through folds, gaps, and distortions so the next stage of virtual unwrapping can do its magic.
This could help unlock works of philosophy, poetry, and history that haven’t been read in centuries. Texts that might have been lost forever—until now.
Let’s bring them back, one layer at a time.