Opportunities and issues of image processing for cultural heritage applications

The application of image processing techniques for the analysis, the diagnosis and the restoration of artworks remains a very uncommon practise. Recently, however, there has been a greater interest in acquiring and processing image data of artworks: the efforts in this application field have been characterized by promising results, which proved the advantages that the use of digital image processing may have on several issues. In this paper the peculiarities and the state of the art of this application field will be described.