A mosaicing approach for the acquisition and representation of 3D painted surfaces for conservation and restoration purposes

This paper describes an approach to the acquisition and representation of information on 3D painted surfaces (usually frescoes) based on the tassellation and mosaicing of the whole surface. The acquisition is carried out using an active vision system specifically designed for these purposes. In this paper, particular emphasis is placed on the mosaicing procedure of the acquired images, which, while conceptually simple, allows one to obtain very good results thanks to the effective exploitation of the features of the acquisition system. A careful qualitative and quantitative analysis of the performances of the system, obtained through tests on real scenes in the laboratory, is also presented.Received: 28 May 2001, Accepted: 8 November 2002, Published online: 18 June 2003 Correspondence to: Paolo GrattoniMassimiliano Spertino: With I.R.I.T.I. under grant N.202.12484 of the Italian Safeguard of Cultural Heritage C.N.R. project.