Custom Acquisition and Workflow Integration in Cultural Heritage Applications Seminar

Digital acquisition of objects, be it photographic documentation, document scanning or 3-D scanning of objects, is often considered a solved problem, and most people take it for granted that such technology is directly beneficial to cultural heritage applications. This widely shared impression is contrasted by the situation in many archives, museums and excavations: no single scanning technology is suitable for a wide-enough range of objects, and commercial software packages require expert users and substantial manual interaction to obtain high-quality models from raw scan data. At the example of three application domains, we will study how, by carefully analysing existing workflows, custom scanning and processing solutions can be made amenable for every-day operation in a non-technical environment. I will report on our experiences with fresco reconstruction at the Akrotiri Excavation, Santorini, on the reconstruction of fire-damaged parchment with London Metropolitan Archives, and on the analysis of Egyptian papyri with the Petrie Museum in London.