Luca Pezzati - E-RIHS

1. Digitisation and Measurement of
Tangible Heritage: Two Converging
Roads?
Luca Pezzati
READY TO REACH OUT
Connecting Cultural Heritage Collections and Serving Wider Audiences
2016 Conference
29-30 June 2016, Amsterdam

2. LAUNCH OF THE ESFRI ROADMAP 2016 – Amsterdam, 2016 March 10th
distributed research infrastructure for heritage
interpretation, preservation, documentation and
management
Coordinating Country
Italy
11 Member Countries
Belgium
Cyprus
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Portugal
Spain
The Netherlands
United Kingdom
8 Participating
Countries
Brazil
Bulgaria
Denmark
Ireland
Israel
Poland
Slovenia
Sweden
2016-2019
preparatory phase
2021-2025
implementation phase
www.e-rihs.eu
a cross-disciplinary collection of advanced tools and services
serving a cross-disciplinary community of researchers
ARCHLAB
Scientific archives for
heritage science
MOLAB
Mobile laboratory for
in-situ diagnostics
FIXLAB
Access to large-
scale facilities
DIGILAB
Digital scientific datasets
for heritage science

3.  a study prepared for the EC in 2010 [Poole, N., The Cost of
Digitising Europe’s Cultural Heritage] estimates in the order of 100
billion of Euro the cost of digitizing all Europe’s public cultural
heritage assets
 from the same document: “Digitisation is a loosely-defined term
which describes the set of management and technical processes
and activities by which material is selected, processed, converted
from analogue to digital format, described, stored, preserved and
distributed.”
digitising tangible heritage

4. digitisation
Digitization is the
representation of an object,
image, sound, document or
signal by generating a
series of numbers that
describe a discrete set of its
points or samples. The
result is called digital
representation.
Wikipedia

5. measuring tangible heritage
 scientific instruments measure physical quantities and store them
in digital form
 well defined protocols make sure measurements are reproducible
 errors must be assessed

6.  qualitative output
 no information on errors
 guidelines not protocols
 text, 2D and 3D images, audio, video, …
 mass-production process
 quantitative output
 errors assessed and given
 measurement protocols
 all kinds of datasets, including the above
 quality process
digitising vs. measuring

7.  text
 images
 audio
 video
 3D models (artefacts, monuments, buildings, …)
 color
 roughness/texture/glossiness
 reflectance spectra (X-UV-VIS-NIR-IR), also in image format
 fluorescence and luminescence (X-UV-IR), also in image format
 material composition (chemical analysis, physical analysis)
 inner composition (tomography)
 …
heritage: what is digitised / measured

8. • enhance/allow public/remote access to CH
• virtual exhibitions
• producing physical copies from digital data
• gaming
• research made easy (VREs)
• research made possible (fragile items, unreachable objects, …)
• document heritage at risk of loss
• document heritage purposely lost (destructive measurements)
• preserve and transmit knowledge to future generations
why digitising / measuring heritage
Datare-usetimeline:
long-termshort-term

9. are digitisation and measurement due to converge?
Already happening:
 better and better digitisers approach measurement-quality results
 better instruments produce denser measurements
Needs boosting:
 user’s awareness on the outcomes
 better planning of digitisation projects
 open data (sharing) of heritage measurement results

10. could be feasible if we:
 document all properties of the object which are reasonably
measurable
 use scientific measurement procedures
- error estimates
- protocols
- calibrated & certified instruments
 develop new digitisers and digitising procedures to mass-measure
at reasonable costs
documenting heritage!

11. Are heritage datasets themselves heritage?
Leonardo:MadonnaVirginoftheRocks(detail)
TheNationalGallery
wide-bandinfraredimage(0.8-1.7microns)

12. …thank you for your attention!
luca.pezzati@cnr.it
www.e-rihs.eu

13. Examples of data loss

14. heritage at risk of loss (collapse)
ThePoesiaCave
RocaVecchia,Lecce
coastalcavewith600sqmmessapic/greek/latin
inscriptions

15. heritage lost on purpose (destructive measurement)
PaintsamplefromThePalaceofNestore
Pylos,13thcenturyB.C.
pyrolysisandgaschromatography/massspectroscopy
27.50 28.00 28.50 29.00 29.50 30.00 30.50 31.00
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2000
2100
2200
2300
2400
2500
2600
Time-->
Abundance
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110120130 140 150160 170180 190 200210 220230 2400
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
6500
7000
7500
8000
m/z-->
Abundance
57
97
110
8270 124
138 194
180 208152
166
222
hexadecanenitrile
40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 2600
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
m/z-->
Abundance
57
75 97
11085
124
138 222166 236208152 194180 250 265
octadecanenitrile
courtesy of M.P. Colombini, University of Pisa and ICVBC CNR

16. Our possible Q&As about Renaissance (600ys ago):
 Q. What was the sound of music, or of speech?
 A. Forever lost. No hi-fi systems around…
 Q. What was the appearance of artworks and buildings?
 A. Lost: no photography. Only partial descriptions in paintings.
 Q. What were the original colours of paintings?
 A. Forever lost. No colorimetry available in 1480.
looking to the past…

17. Possible Q&As about us, in 600ys to come (2616A.D.):
Q. What was the sound of music in 2000?
A. Just open the audio files and listen…
(if we care about long-term preservation)
Q. What was the appearance of artworks and buildings in 2000?
A. Look, they saved complete models of cities and museums!
(if we care about long-term preservation)
Q. What were the original colours of Keith Haring paintings?
A. Ooooops! Why they did not measure them? They had colorimetry since
1931!!!!!
…planning for the future

18. Examples of heritage datasets

19. images (2D-mapped)
Leonardo:VirginoftheRocks(detail)
TheNationalGallery
colorimageandwide-bandinfraredimage

20. multi-spectral images (11 bands, 2D-mapped)
Leonardo:MadonnaoftheYarnwinder(detail)
privatecollection
multi-spectralscanninginfraredimages
1030 nm 1112 nm 1200 nm 1300 nm 1400 nm
1500 nm 1600 nm 1820 nm1700 nm 1930nm
2265 nm

21. hyper-spectral images (512 bands, 2D-mapped)
MaestroGuglielmo:Sarzana’sCross,1138(detail)
CathedralofSarzana

22. sections (2D-mapped)
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
L
M
Z: 1 mm
(1000 pts)
X: 2 cm
(4000 pts)
OD level:
16bit

23. surface relief maps (2D-mapped)
Michelangelo:David(details)
GalleryoftheAccademia,Florence

24. 3D models (2D- or 3D-mapped)
Cattedrale di Pisa
courtesy of INO CNR and R. Scopigno, ISTI CNR

25. tomography models (3D-mapped)
courtesy of P. Targowski, University of Torun

26. More on digitisation and
conclusions

27.  final cost of mass-digitisation is largely dependent on manpower,
not instruments
 research can target development of “smart scanners” to support
low-cost mass-digitisation
 outcomes can boost innovation and industrial development
documenting heritage: sustainability

28.  store for long-term: metadata must include full info of (e.g.):
 digitization/measurement protocols
 errors and error estimation strategy
 extended instrument info (model, calibration, manuals,…)
 environmental parameters during measurement
 e-infrastructures for heritage must address the problems of re-
using complex interrelated multi-dimensional data sets
 specialized VREs needed
 intensive use of 3D models and VR to access/reference/-connect
heritage data sets
doumenting heritage: storing & re-using data

29.  new approach needed for digitisation and data preservation
 new digitisers needed for low-cost mass-production of quantitative
digital data
 new tools for data handling and for their use in virtual research
environments must be studied
 common strategies to be developed in collaboration between “data
producer” SCI research infrastructures and e-infrastructures
conclusions