Virtual Restoration of Ancient Manuscripts

Ancient manuscripts restoration is a very challenging field that requires considerable expertise. Since most of the restoration procedures (e.g. chemical cleaning of dirt layers) are irreversible, a huge amount of planning is required before each operation, especially when the work of art that is being restored is of great historical and/or artistic importance. The development of modern digital image processing techniques, applied to the restoration field, can be very useful to restoration experts, art historians or museum curators, in order to provide a non-intrusive and non-destructive virtual analysis and restoration operation. Accordingly, by developing (or applying) some image processing techniques it is possible to assess a digital restoration of the manuscript before performing a physical restoration.