TY - JOUR
T1 - Arduino-controlled Reflectance Transformation Imaging to the study of cultural heritage objects
AU - Corregidor, Victoria
AU - Dias, Renato
AU - Catarino, Norberto
AU - Cruz, Carlos
AU - Alves, Luis C.
AU - Cruz, João
N1 - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Portugal (Grant Nos. UIDB/04349/2020 and UID/FIS/04559/2019)-
Private funds. V.C. acknowledges the support from UID/Multi/04349/2019.
J.C. acknowledges NOVA.ID.FCT.
PY - 2020/8/29
Y1 - 2020/8/29
N2 - This article examines the development of a low-cost and portable set-up controlled by an Arduino board to perform Reflectance Transformation Imaging technique, from the information derived from 45 digital photographs of an object acquired using a stationary camera. The set-up consists of 45 high-intensity light emitting diodes (LEDs) distributed over a hemispherical dome of 70 cm in diameter and a digital camera on the top of the dome. The LEDs are controlled by an Arduino board, and the user can individually control the LEDs state (ON or OFF) and duration of illumination. An old manuscript written with iron-gall ink and a set of 1 Euro coins mint in 2002 were photographed with the set-up. The interactive re-lighting and the mathematical enhancement of the object's surface revealed corrosion, loss of material, scratches and other details, which were not perceived in standard images. These unique features, which can be extracted using edge detection processing, have immediate application in different fields such as cultural heritage or forensic studies, where they can be used as fingerprints to identify unique objects, allowing also recognizing the use of tools to alter the surface of coins to increase the price in the market.
AB - This article examines the development of a low-cost and portable set-up controlled by an Arduino board to perform Reflectance Transformation Imaging technique, from the information derived from 45 digital photographs of an object acquired using a stationary camera. The set-up consists of 45 high-intensity light emitting diodes (LEDs) distributed over a hemispherical dome of 70 cm in diameter and a digital camera on the top of the dome. The LEDs are controlled by an Arduino board, and the user can individually control the LEDs state (ON or OFF) and duration of illumination. An old manuscript written with iron-gall ink and a set of 1 Euro coins mint in 2002 were photographed with the set-up. The interactive re-lighting and the mathematical enhancement of the object's surface revealed corrosion, loss of material, scratches and other details, which were not perceived in standard images. These unique features, which can be extracted using edge detection processing, have immediate application in different fields such as cultural heritage or forensic studies, where they can be used as fingerprints to identify unique objects, allowing also recognizing the use of tools to alter the surface of coins to increase the price in the market.
KW - Arduino
KW - Low-cost dome
KW - Reflectance Transformation Imaging
KW - Coins recognition
KW - Degradation visualization
U2 - 10.1007/s42452-020-03343-4
DO - 10.1007/s42452-020-03343-4
M3 - Article
VL - 2
JO - Applied sciences-Basel
JF - Applied sciences-Basel
SN - 2076-3417
IS - 9
M1 - 1586
ER -