THE years take their toll on forgotten relics. By the time they make it into
a museum, bits have flaked off and colours faded. But a newly developed computer
system will allow visitors to see exhibits in all their glory, with missing
limbs restored or drab clothing spruced up.
The 鈥渧irtual showcase鈥� devised by J枚rg Voskamp of the Fraunhofer
Institute for Computer Graphics in Rostock looks like an upside-down glass
pyramid with its tip chopped off, sitting on a glass table. The damaged artefact
sits in the middle of the pyramid.
The missing pieces are provided by a 3D computer model. This can be created
either from old photographs of the intact piece or by asking archaeologists or
art historians to make an educated guess and recreate the missing bits using 3D
graphics software.
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To see the reconstructed artefact, viewers wear glasses containing a tiny
radio transmitter. This sends out signals that sensors in the table use to track
the position and motion of the viewer鈥檚 head.
Based on this information, the showcase works out what the missing parts of
the exhibit should look like to the viewer, and projects a suitable image
through the table and onto the sides of the pyramid.
The faces of the pyramids are half-mirrors, so when you look at the exhibit
you see the image superimposed on the original damaged piece. The glasses are
fitted with liquid-crystal shutters that open and close rapidly, exposing first
one eye and then the other, and the computer-generated image switches in
synchrony so that each eye sees a slightly different image. 鈥淭he brain combines
this to form a 3D image in the right position on the exhibit,鈥� says Voskamp.
Virtual reconstruction has certain advantages, says Angie Geary, a lecturer
with the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal College of Art conservation
programmes in London. Conservation experts don鈥檛 have to make permanent changes
to the object, which may or may not be accurate reconstructions, and people can
still see the genuine relic simply by taking off the glasses.