Physics-Guided Multistep Deformation Reversal for Ancient Bamboo Slip Restoration

Bamboo slips are essential media for recording ancient East Asian civilizations, but excavated slips often suffer severe deformation due to dehydration and stress effects, creating substantial challenges for restoration. Traditional manual restoration is time-consuming and risks damage, while existing generative models struggle with the complex non-linear deformations in bamboo materials.We propose a novel framework for inverse restoration of deformed bamboo slips that provides a progressive physical deformation modeling with stepwise inverse displacement prediction. Our approach establishes a computable mathematical model of deformation based on wood fiber microstructure and stress-diffusion coupling effects, enabling the forward process to simulate physically plausible deformation trajectories as a deterministic, physics-driven progressive evolution. The inverse process transforms from predicting abstract noise to learning physically meaningful inverse displacement fields that progressively restore deformations.Experimental results show substantial gains in restoration fidelity while preserving delicate textual features, enabling the reliable correction of complex non-linear deformations that defeat traditional techniques. By integrating physical insights into bamboo material behavior with progressive restoration modeling, this work establishes a new paradigm for digital archaeological restoration—one that holds significant potential to transform how deformed cultural relics are reconstructed and studied.