Elsevier

Journal of Cultural Heritage

Volume 17, January–February 2016, Pages 131-140
Journal of Cultural Heritage

Original article
Cyclododecane as opacifier for digitalization of archaeological glass

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2015.06.003Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper faces the problem of acquiring archaeological artifacts using triangulation based 3D laser scanners and focusing on reflective/refractive surfaces. This kind of artifacts are mostly made of glass or polished metal, and the properties of their surfaces violate most of the fundamental assumptions made by vision algorithms. Also, the unique and fragile nature of archaeological artifacts adds an extra constraint to the acquisition process: the use of industrial whitening sprays has to be avoided, due to the physicochemical processes required to clean the surface after scanning and because the chemical properties of these sprays may damage the original object. As an alternative to them, a new way to use a common conservation material is proposed: the use of cyclododecane as a whitening spray. Thanks to its chemical stability and to the fact that it sublimes at room temperature, together with its good film-forming capabilities, a set of evaluation tests is presented to prove that the error introduced by the opaque thin layer created on the surface of the artifact is smaller than the accuracy of the 3D scanner and, thus, no acquisition errors are introduced. A comparison with general-purpose industrial whitening sprays is also presented, and achieved results show no significant differences in the quality of the resulting 3D models.

Section snippets

Research aims

This paper proposes the use of cyclododecane, a very common conservation material, for 3D acquisition of reflective/refractive archaeological artifacts. Thanks to the fact that it sublimes at room temperature leaving no residuals and its good film-forming capabilities, its use as an opacifier allows using general-purpose triangulation based 3D laser scanners without damaging original objects. A set of evaluation experiments is introduced in order to demonstrate that quality of achieved results

Experimental

In order to evaluate how CCD performs as a whitening spray, to measure the error introduced in the acquisition process and to compare it with other general-purpose industrial whitening sprays, a set of evaluation experiments have been developed.

First experiment deals with the sublimation speed of CCD in accelerated conditions (by directing a hairdryer to an over-sprayed object) and shows the most interesting characteristic of this material. Second and third experiments deal with the measurement

Results

According to all previous experiments, the advantages arising from cyclododecane's chemical stability and the fact that it sublimes at ambient temperature make it a perfect candidate for the acquisition of reflective/refractive archaeological artifacts, even taking into account that its particle size is bigger.

Fig. 7 shows the results achieved when scanning a set of glass artifacts using and not using CCD as a whitening spray, whilst Fig. 8 shows one of the artifacts sprayed with cyclododecane

Conclusions

This paper has presented an alternative application for a widely used material in heritage conservation and restoration: cyclododecane. Applied as a spray, CCD creates a thin, white opaque film on the surface of artifacts that allows acquiring them using triangulation based 3D laser scanners.

Thanks to its chemical stability and to the fact that it sublimes at room temperature leaving no residuals, CCD is a perfect candidate to solve reflection/refraction issues during the scanning process.

A set

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the “Programa de Ayudas de Investigación y Desarrollo (PAID)” of the Universitat Politècnica de València and the “Plan Nacional de I+D+i 2008–2011” from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain, Projects ID: HAR2012-38391-C02-01 and HAR2012-38391-C02-02.

Authors would also like to acknowledge the collaboration to the “Museo de Cerámica de Manises” and especially to its director Mrs. Sara Blanes Ibáñez.

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