Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass

Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by ttoinou on Monday November 07, 2022 @05:35AM (#33504082)

We should code an algorithm that tells you how to reconstruct the object from 3d scans of the glass pieces

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Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by pjc50 on Monday November 07, 2022 @05:55AM (#33504257)

There was a prize offered for almost exactly that, reconstructing the Stasi archives from the shredded pieces. I'm not sure what came of it?

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Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by unwind on Monday November 07, 2022 @06:43AM (#33504604)

From [1]:

In 2007 research began on developing a computer-aided reconstruction program in a pilot project. Since the launch of the test phase at the end of 2013, approximately 60,000 pages from 18 bags have been reconstructed so far (status August 2020).

So I guess it did work, some kind of software was implemented, and results are being produced.

I wonder why they went through the trouble to shred enough paper to fill 16,000 bags, only to then archive the bags? So strange but I'm not a history buff so I don't know the details. Feels like it would have been way more efficient in terms of destroying the records if the bags had been thrown in a river/lake (or, obviously, burnt). Perhaps there was no time, although all that shredding and bagging must have taken a while. Almost makes we wish I spent more time on this when I visited Berlin. :)

[1]: https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/en/archives/the-recon...

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Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by CiceroCiceronis on Monday November 07, 2022 @07:48AM (#33505110)

I remember once someone mentioned in comments here a science fiction book where a whole library was digitised by pumping all the books into a massive shredder, blowing the shreds through a pipe with cameras all over the walls, then stitching it electronically. Can't remember what the book was...

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Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by traverseda on Monday November 07, 2022 @08:21AM (#33505438)

Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End.

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Re:Conserving Beirut's Shattered Glass by adolph on Monday November 07, 2022 @08:39AM (#33505621)

The militants had been combing embassy records and figuring out who was CIA. They had even hired teams of carpet weavers to successfully reassemble shredded documents. (The recovered papers would later be published by the Iranian government in a series of books called Documents From the US Espionage Den.)

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/68584/during-ira...

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