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Visual Art System for Archiving & Retrieval of Images
 Birbeck College, Art History Department
London,
England
Year: 1993
Status: Laureate
Category: Media Arts & Entertainment
Nominating Company: Sun Microsystems, Inc. |
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The VASARI project produced a scanning technique that replaces
photography of painting with accurate digital imaging. The precise,
high-resolution images are used for painting conservation, scientific
analysis, publishing, and teaching. |
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Photography has long been used to keep records of the appearance
of
paintings. Unfortunately photographs are neither permanent nor
accurate.
For the first time, the VASARI system makes it possible to
measure the
colour of the whole surface of a painting; previously the
study of even
small areas of colour was a long, arduous
process.
The VASARI project has developed a
computer-controlled scanning system
which produces digital high
resolution images of works of art with
excellent colour accuracy. The
system is based on a high resolution
camera and innovative lighting
system mounted on a robotic positioning
device. Images from the
camera are calibrated and assembled by a SUN
workstation, which
also controls the scanning operation. New image
calibration and
processing software and a graphical user interface have
been
developed to cope with the large images, which can be up to
10,000
by 10,000 pixels in size and occupy 700Mbytes of disk space
(for a
seven-band colour image).
These advances have
permitted changes in the colour and surface
appearance of the
paintings to be monitored with time. For example,
comparison of
images made before and after conservation treatment
have
indicated to restorers the changes in appearance caused by
cleaning. By
examining the surface of the painting before and after a
painting has
travelled on exhibition, it is possible to assess any
damage caused by
transportation. Previous attempts to document
such information have not
proved successful. The repeatability and
accuracy of the digital
measurements are the key to the project's
success.
VASARI was sponsored by the European Community
and involved: Birkbeck
College (London), The National Gallery
(London), Brameur Ltd. (UK), The
Doerner Institut (Munich), TUV
(Munich), Thomson-CSF (France), Telecom
Paris and SIDAC
(Rome). |
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