Analysis of multispectral images of paintings

One hundred paintings conserved in several museums have been scanned by the C2RMF using the multi-spectral CRISATEL camera [3]. These high resolution images allow us to not only generate an accurate colour image under any chosen illuminant, but also allow us to reconstruct the reflectance spectra at each pixel. Such images can be used for a visual qualitative as well as measurement-based quantitative scientific analysis of the work of art. Several image processing tools have been developped to allow us to perform these analyses. The IIPImage system [2] enables us to visualize high resolution multi-spectral 16 bit images, view image details in colour or for each spectral channel and to super-impose and compare different wavelengths. A complementary viewing system uses an innovative 3D graphics hardware-accelerated viewer to allow us to reconstruct the resulting colour dynamically while interactively changing the light spectrum. The system also allows us to perform segmentation, view the colour distribution for a particular colour-space and perfonn dynamic spectral reconstruction.