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Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece

Publication ,  Journal Article
Cornelis, B; Ružić, T; Gezels, E; Dooms, A; Pižurica, A; Platiša, L; Cornelis, J; Martens, M; De Mey, M; Daubechies, I
Published in: Signal Processing
March 1, 2013

Digital image processing is proving to be of great help in the analysis and documentation of our vast cultural heritage. In this paper, we present a new method for the virtual restoration of digitized paintings with special attention for the Ghent Altarpiece (1432), a large polyptych panel painting of which very few digital reproductions exist. We achieve our objective by detecting and digitally removing cracks. The detection of cracks is particularly difficult because of the varying content features in different parts of the polyptych. Three new detection methods are proposed and combined in order to detect cracks of different sizes as well as varying brightness. Semi-supervised clustering based post-processing is used to remove objects falsely labelled as cracks. For the subsequent inpainting stage, a patch-based technique is applied to handle the noisy nature of the images and to increase the performance for crack removal. We demonstrate the usefulness of our method by means of a case study where the goal is to improve readability of the depiction of text in a book, present in one of the panels, in order to assist paleographers in its deciphering. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Signal Processing

DOI

ISSN

0165-1684

Publication Date

March 1, 2013

Volume

93

Issue

3

Start / End Page

605 / 619

Related Subject Headings

  • Networking & Telecommunications
  • 46 Information and computing sciences
  • 40 Engineering
  • 10 Technology
  • 09 Engineering
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences
 

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Cornelis, B., Ružić, T., Gezels, E., Dooms, A., Pižurica, A., Platiša, L., … Daubechies, I. (2013). Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece. Signal Processing, 93(3), 605–619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2012.07.022
Cornelis, B., T. Ružić, E. Gezels, A. Dooms, A. Pižurica, L. Platiša, J. Cornelis, M. Martens, M. De Mey, and I. Daubechies. “Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece.” Signal Processing 93, no. 3 (March 1, 2013): 605–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2012.07.022.
Cornelis B, Ružić T, Gezels E, Dooms A, Pižurica A, Platiša L, et al. Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece. Signal Processing. 2013 Mar 1;93(3):605–19.
Cornelis, B., et al. “Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece.” Signal Processing, vol. 93, no. 3, Mar. 2013, pp. 605–19. Scopus, doi:10.1016/j.sigpro.2012.07.022.
Cornelis B, Ružić T, Gezels E, Dooms A, Pižurica A, Platiša L, Cornelis J, Martens M, De Mey M, Daubechies I. Crack detection and inpainting for virtual restoration of paintings: The case of the Ghent Altarpiece. Signal Processing. 2013 Mar 1;93(3):605–619.
Journal cover image

Published In

Signal Processing

DOI

ISSN

0165-1684

Publication Date

March 1, 2013

Volume

93

Issue

3

Start / End Page

605 / 619

Related Subject Headings

  • Networking & Telecommunications
  • 46 Information and computing sciences
  • 40 Engineering
  • 10 Technology
  • 09 Engineering
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences