VASARI, MARC, ACOHIR and Viseum Advanced imaging systems Kirk Martinez Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton
VASARI Visual Arts System for Archiving and Retrieval of Images European project Aimed to make highest quality imaging system to replace conventional photography BRAMEUR LTD, DOERNER INSTITUT, TELECOM PARIS, NATIONAL GALLERY, THOMSON, BIRKBECK COLLEGE, TÜV, GFAI, SIDAC, SYSECA, DIRECTION DES MUSEES DE FRANCE
National Gallery VASARI Scanner Captures 3kx2k patches precise mechanics uses Kontron Progres camera
VASARI scanner Fibre-optic system illuminates area with narrow spectral band of light
Vasari lighting system
VASARI scanner filter wheel Filter wheel in light system holds the narrow-band filters recently extended from 7 to 12 to include near infra-red bands
VASARI scanner in action
CIELab for device independence
The Uffizi’s VASARI scanner
From VASARI to MARC
MARC European project to investigate accurate printing and a calibrated image chain. calibrated printing press and printed a book! Also made a new camera with the Lenz brothers in Munich.
MARC camera
Sensor Masking
MARC results 20min capture time for 10kx10k in use at National Gallery photographic dept. to capture the whole collection. colour accuracy around 2-3 E CIELab
MARC2 camera Made by the Lenz brothers in Munich for JJT and National Library of Congress much faster: around 30s! 10kx10k x 12 bits uses a 1.3kx1k masked sensor in 4 macro positions and microscanning uses fibre link to PC with 1GB RAM.
Viseum How to browse 2GB images over the Web? Web server plugin sends image tiles Java applet views portions of images at any scale and position We also made a fibre linked network from Vancouver to London to test ATM (up to 155Mbit/s)
ACOHIR Accurate colour high resolution imaging of 3D objects Improving on Quicktime-VR: –Higher resolution –more accurate colour Web browsing of objects without large download Make applications for archaeology, sculpture and commercial sales or porcelain and furniture ran from
ACOHIR Partners Athens Technology (Gr) Barco (B) University of Southampton ENST, Paris AIDIMA (E) Cobax (D) The National Gallery, London LRMF - Louvre (F) Museum of Cycladic art (Gr) University of Thessaloniki (Gr) Christian and Byzantine museum of Athens EOCENO (E) Vasari enterprises (UK)
ECS Imaging System
Louvre’s ACOHIR system Uses Kodak DCS 560 camera (3kx2k) strong turntable for larger sculptures custom PC software for capture and colour calibration.
Setup object in centre of turntable. Focus camera (using zone plate print if needed). Set aperture and gain for Macbeth white to be in range. Take test grab to check exposure, focus and cropping. Take black image (cover lens). Take image of flat white where chart will be. Take image of Macbeth chart. Run capture script. Acquisition Procedure
Chart: Linearize, subtract dark, scale by white, measure Use MacBeth image to find 3 by 3 matrix, plus 3 offsets, to go from linear RGB to XYZ Colour convert each frame to XYZ, then to sRGB Optional sharpen Save as TIFF pyramids Calibration Procedure
Tiled Pyramidal JPEG TIFF Store full image plus half/quarter etc resolution Each image is tiled as 64x64 blocks Each tile is JPEG compressed (or LZW lossless) Pels are stored as sRGB or CIELab
Icon View Main image area Zoom controls Description links to views off-site links
Current research content-based retrieval of art –finding images for the V&A picture library –finding conservation structures for Louvre and Uffizi Demos: