MATERIAL

Museums are operating under conflicting constraints: they have to preserve the artifacts they are storing, while making them available to the public and to researchers. Many cultural artifacts are so fragile that sim-ply exposing them to light degrades them. Recent advances have used 3D scanning, combined with virtual reality and 3D printing for the preservation and study of sculptures, and flatbed scanners for the preservation of books and prints. Both approaches are limited: they acquire the geometry and the color, but not complex material properties. Current 3D printers are also limited in the range of colors and details they can reproduce. Several cultural artifacts, such as silk cloths and oil paints, have a subtle and complex appearance: their as-pect changes depending on the incoming light and the position of the observer. Current scanners are not able to capture these subtle effects, and existing printers, either 2D or 3D, are unable to reproduce them. Existing research on material appearance shows that this microscopic geometry and color are essential in the overall appearance of materials. Our goal in this project is to address the entire chain of material acquisition and restitution, based on this micro-geometry. Our idea is to scan complex cultural artifacts, such as cloths, capturing all the geometry of their materials at the microscopic level, then process the information to further reproduce the artifacts for study by public and researchers. Reproduction can be either through virtual reality or through 3D models. This ambitious vision is made possible by the joint expertise brought of the consortium partners: - Manao (a research team from the Institut d’Optique in Bordeaux) has a strong expertise in acquisition on local micro-geometry and reflectance properties, as well as material representation. - Maverick (an Inria research team in Grenoble) has a strong expertise in photorealistic rendering and material representations. - The Ethnographic Museum of Bordeaux University (MEB) has complex artifacts, including costumes from South-East Asia. It also has expertise in cultural heritage conservation, study and valorization. - Océ Print Logic Technologies is a research and development center of Océ/Canon; they are developing a prototype 2.5D color printer, with high spatial and color accuracy. This project fits into the Axe 3 of Défi 7 of the 2015 ANR general call, “Le numérique au service des arts, du patrimoine, des industries culturelles et éditoriales”.