Restoring Art in an Instant

Reported November 2009

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Art restoration, making an object appear as it did originally, can be painstaking and difficult. If not carefully done, the process can cause more damage to an object. There is a new way to restore art -- without even touching it.

Visiting an art museum is like stepping back into time. It’s a quiet world of old, priceless, original works of art that sadly, are not always in pristine condition.

Daniel Aliaga, Ph.D., computer scientist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and his students have developed a virtual art restoration process that returns art to its original appearance within seconds.

"Suddenly we can make the actual objects look the way they did 2,000 years ago," Aliaga told Ivanhoe.

Traditional restoration methods are slow and difficult, particularly on old, fragile pieces of art. The new process changes 800-year-old artifacts dramatically.

"We can project light onto it, and therefore, it suddenly looks brand new, even though it's the actual same object," Aliaga explained.

A digital camera first captures a 3D model of the object. The model is then downloaded into a computer program that calculates the position, color and light intensity needed to achieve the desired look. Several digital projectors project the illusion onto the object, creating a perfect replica of the original.

"Another advantage is that it's reversible in a sense that the object is changed only when the projector is on," Aliaga explained. "Turn the projector off and it looks the same as it was before."

It makes the old look new again.

The technique can also be used to create unique patterns on almost any object, depending on your artistic taste. Researchers are working on developing the process to work on transparent objects like glasswork and other textures like hair and feathers.

The Optical Society of America contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Daniel Aliaga, PhD
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Purdue University
aliaga@cs.purdue.edu

Optical Society of America
Washington, DC 20036-1023
(202) 223-8130
http://www.osa.org
info@osa.org

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