University of Southampton OCS (beta), CAA 2012

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Multi-spectral imaging of historic handwritings
Fabian Hollaus, Florian Kleber, Robert Sablatnig

Last modified: 2012-01-16

Abstract


Multi-spectral imaging has proven its usefulness for the examination of ancient manuscripts, since it enhances the legibility of vanished or erased writings. Hence, this non-invasive conservation technique facilitates the work of philologists. This paper is concerned with the acquisition and digital processing of multi-spectral images containing historic writings. The manuscript pages examined contain an overwritten historic text and an overlying handwriting, which is considerably younger than the overlying text. The younger texts are visible under all wavelengths utilized, while the older texts are best legible under UltraViolet illumination. This work presents efforts, which have been taken, in order to make the ancient writings readable. At first the image acquisition setup is detailed and the image processing methods, which have been applied, are explained in the second part of the document.