Page 12 - Industrial Technology EXTRA 10th May 2021

ART WORLD...

Large scale art scanning

relies on motion technolgies

New art scanning technology is paving the way for galleries and institutions
to study and understand their art collections like never before.
large-scale digital art scanner has
been developed by motion tech-
nology specialist, LG Motion. It
Acaptures high-resolution digital
images, giving galleries the potential to uncover
new insights and gain more understanding into
the provenance of works. The scanner uses IR,
UV and X-Ray spectral imaging capabilities as
well as multi-spectral imaging.
The art scanner is already installed at
several renowned institutions, including the be preserved digitally for further inspection and
National Gallery in London, Kimbell Art Museum in cataloguing. Such detailed imaging can reveal
Texas, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the previously unknown and unseen features. Digital
National Gallery of Art in Washington. It is enabling documentation allows conserv-ationists and
curators to catalogue large-scale artworks quickly historians to protect valuable artworks by reducing
and efficiently, and each site is using the scanner for future handling and disturbance. The art scanner
different reasons, not just to manage and catalogue also outputs meta-data for use in databases,
collections but also to maximise the commercial triggering events to match various devices for faster
benefits of superior digital imagery of the pieces. and more accessible data extraction in the future.
Motion technology is used to allow the scanner This state-of-the-art scanning solution is ideal
to cross in front of the artwork, surveying and for photographic, art and scientific teams, art
gathering digital data and producing stunning ultra- historians, students and collection custodians, or
high-resolution images with extraordinary detail and any professional art handler looking into the
clarity. The hi-spec technology together with provenance of a particular piece. The scanner
bespoke software provides precise automated affords flexibility as a range of devices can be used
capture and assembly of the images. These can to capture detailed information about any artwork
then be combined with an intelligent stitching subject. The one-to-one replication also mitigates
algorithm resulting in an incredibly high-resolution any digital distortion, with tiling enabling even the
image of the whole painting. It takes just minutes to largest of pieces to be scanned.
capture huge areas of the artwork, which can then www.lg-motion.co.uk

May 2021 • INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY EXTRA • p12