Recent advancements in 3D scanning technology open a window of opportunity in works of art documentation's possibilities. Contrary to classic techniques of visual documentation (a drawing or photograph), 3D scanning may become the first technique offering objective and dispassionate recording of reality because the subjective stage of analysis takes place only during final data processing by end users such as art conservators, historians, archeologists and epigraphers. The general assumption is made that the best representation of digitized work of art is rough measurement data (in many modern cases it is a cloud of points - a set of geometric (x, y, z) data along with additional parameters like color values, surface reflectance etc.). The concept of 3D scanning and data processing has to be designed by an interdisciplinary team, combining technical competency with knowledge of end users' requirements and demands. The basic points of this elaboration are: what additional measurement parameters, beside shape, are needed for full digitization of an object, as well as what accuracy of geometry measurement is high enough for registration of objects made from different materials. This last question is to be answered within a recently started three-year research program, whose methodological assumptions are stated in the presented paper. Some preliminary results are also shown together with discussion of achieved sampling density and accuracy.

Date Published: 11 May 2010
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7531, Computer Vision and Image Analysis of Art, 75310I (11 May 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.839193

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7531:
Computer Vision and Image Analysis of Art
David G. Stork; Jim Coddington; Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, Editor(s)