Documenting Paintings Using Gigapixel SfM Photogrammetry

Abstract

[EN] Capturing paintings with gigapixel resolution (resolution around 1000 megapixels or greater) is an innovative technique that is starting to be used by some important international museums for documenting, analysing, and disseminating their masterpieces.

This line of research is extremely interesting, not only for art curators and scholars, but also for the general public. The results can be disseminated through online virtual tours, offering a detailed interactive visualization. These virtual tours allow the viewer to delve into the artwork, in such a way, that it is possible to zoom in and observe those details, which would be negligible to the naked eye in a real visit. Therefore, this kind of virtual visualization using gigapixel images becomes an essential tool to enhance this cultural heritage and to make it accessible to everyone.

This article will describe an affordable methodology, based on SfM photogrammetry techniques, with which it will be possible to achieve a very high level of detail and chromatic fidelity, when documenting and disseminating pictorial artworks. As a practical example, there will be shown a case study of the altarpiece, from the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia (Spain), entitled Virgen de las fiebres, painted around 1500 by Bernardino di Benedetto di Biagio, nicknamed `Il Pinturicchio' (Perugia, ca. 1454 ¿ Siena, 1513).