heritage

Abstract: Computational flattening algorithms have been successfully applied to X-ray microtomography scans of damaged historical documents, but have so far been limited to scrolls, books, and documents with one or two folds. The challenge tackled here is to reconstruct the intricate folds, tucks, and slits of unopened letters secured shut with ‘’letterlocking,’’ a practice—systematized in this paper—which underpinned global communications security for centuries before modern envelopes. We present a fully automatic computational approach for reconstructing and virtually unfolding volumetric scans of a locked letter with complex internal folding, producing legible images of the letter’s contents and crease pattern while preserving letterlocking evidence....

Abstract: “Can modern imaging and image processing techniques retrieve textual content from damaged parchment rolls?” The Institute of Dentistry at Queen Mary University of London is the leading centre for very high contrast X-Ray Microtomogra- phy imaging. The Apocalypto (Greek for Revelation) Project is our collaboration with experts in Computer Vision systems in the Com- puter Science department at Cardiff University. This collaboration has developed techniques and a workflow that allows us to reveal some textual content from damaged parchment rolls....

Abstract: “Can brute-force high-contrast tomography techniques and image processing techniques retrieve textual content from damaged heritage materials?” The Dental Institute at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is the leading centre for very high contrast X-Ray Microtomography imaging. The Apocalypto Project is our collaboration with the heritage community and experts in Computer Vision systems in the Computer Science Department at Cardiff University. This collaboration has developed techniques and a workflow that allows us to reveal textual content from moisture-damaged parchment rolls....