Comparison of three 3D scanning techniques for paintings, as applied to Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’

A seventeenth-century canvas painting is usually comprised of varnish and (translucent) paint layers on a substrate. A viewer’s perception of a work of art can be affected by changes in and damages to these layers. Crack formation in the multi-layered stratigraphy of the painting is visible in the surface topology. Furthermore, the impact of...

Gloss, color and topography scanning for reproducing a painting’s appearance using 3D printing

High fidelity reproductions of paintings provide new opportunities to museums in preserving and providing access to cultural heritage. This paper presents an integrated system which is able to capture and fabricate color, topography and gloss of a painting, of which gloss capturing forms the most important contribution. A 3D imaging system,...

Topographical scanning and reproduction of near-planar surfaces of paintings

Paintings are near-planar objects with material characteristics that vary widely. The fact that paint has a material presence is often overlooked, mostly because we often encounter these artworks in the form of two-dimensional reproductions. Capturing paintings in the third dimension is not only important for study, restoration and conservation,...