Development of a High Resolution Topography and Color Scanner to Capture Crack Patterns of Paintings

Hengstum, Mathijs J. W. van; Essers, Tessa T. W.; Elkhuizen, Willemijn S.; Dodou, Dimitra; Song, Yu; Geraedts, Jo M. P.; Dik, Joris

Development of a High Resolution Topography and Color Scanner to Capture Crack Patterns of Paintings

Files

011-020.pdf (13.47 MB)

Date

2018

Authors

Hengstum, Mathijs J. W. van
Essers, Tessa T. W.
Elkhuizen, Willemijn S.
Dodou, Dimitra
Song, Yu
Geraedts, Jo M. P.
Dik, Joris

Publisher

The Eurographics Association

Abstract

The aging of paintings is inevitable and over the years degradation occurs due to exposure to a variety of environmental influences. One of these degradations is craquelure, fracture patterns in the paint. 3D imaging techniques offer opportunities to capture the surface of a painting and these patterns at high resolution. In this paper we present a 3D scanner that is able to capture surface topography and color of oil paintings at high resolution utilizing fringe-encoded stereo imaging scanning system. The scanner is capable of automated capture of an area of 1x1m2, capturing a painting at a spatial resolution of 7 micron and a depth accuracy of 34 microns. Scanning at this resolution creates potential research opportunities for documentation and monitoring oil paintings under its environmental influences. A scan was made of 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' (c.1665), painted by Johannes Vermeer, which exhibits fine craquelure patterns. The scanner is able to capture the painting of 39x44.5 cm within 2 hours with a tile overlap of 25%. The results showed that the craquelure has more often a ridge-shaped profile instead of the expected inward valleys. The documentation of these variations in crack profiles create interesting paths for future research.

        @inproceedings{10.2312:gch.20181336
,
booktitle = {Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage
},
editor = {Sablatnig, Robert and Wimmer, Michael
},
title = {{Development of a High Resolution Topography and Color Scanner to Capture Crack Patterns of Paintings
}},
author = {Hengstum, Mathijs J. W. van and 
Essers, Tessa T. W. and 
Elkhuizen, Willemijn S. and 
Dodou, Dimitra and 
Song, Yu and 
Geraedts, Jo M. P. and 
Dik, Joris
},
year = {2018
},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association
},
ISSN = {2312-6124
},
ISBN = {978-3-03868-057-4
},
DOI = {10.2312/gch.20181336
}
}