The EcceHomo project

Callieri M., Pingi P., Potenziani M., Siotto E., Scopigno R.

Painting  3D  Interactive kiosk  Multimedia  Museum exhibition 

In the 2017 "Access Programme" call of the E-RIHS.it (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science) project, which makes the diagnostic tools and the technologies of a number of research institutes available to Italian conservation institutions, the project concerning the Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina from the Collegio Alberoni di Piacenza collection was selected. The objective of the non-invasive diagnostic investigations carried out by CNR-ISTI (Pisa), CNR-IFAC (Florence), INFN-CHNet (Bologna) and INFN-CHNet (Florence), was to achieve greater knowledge of the work and create an objective digital support for evaluation and measurement that could assist the activities of conservators and restorers. The joint work of the multidisciplinary team of the Italian node of E-RIHS.it generated a three-dimensional graphic representation, digital twin of the painting, which varies over time and can be useful as a basis for comparison in the periodic control of the Ecce Homo of Piacenza. All the data gathered with the scientific investigations were integrated (by the Visual Computing Laboratory of the CNR-ISTI of Pisa), through their mapping on the 3D/2D space of the digital representation of the work, in a multimedia platform, with the aim of make possible easy consultation and visualization of all data on the web, both for scientific and educational purposes. The multimedia platform was presented as a kiosk in a public conference dedicated to the "ECCEHOMO" project, which had excellent feedback from the public. The kiosk was subsequently integrated into the museum visit itinerary of the Alberoni College of Piacenza. Developed with HTML/JavaScript technology, the kiosk is based on the HTML5 WebGL API, which makes 2D/3D rendering possible without plug-ins on all major web browsers. The use of web technologies allows installation on a stand-alone machine (as in the museum installation) but at the same time publication on the web. The web visualization of high resolution images is managed by the Relight library, developed by ISTI-CNR. The generation of multiresolution 3D models, and their web visualization, is managed by the Nexus, SpiderGL, and 3DHOP software, all developed by the Visual Computing Laboratory of the CNR-ISTI in Pisa. The contents of the kiosk were designed, discussed and validated with the collaboration of all the work teams involved in the project (CNR-ISTI, CNR-IFAC, INFN-CHNet Bologna and Florence) and by Francesca De Vita, restorer and conservator of the artwork.