Why Digital Archiving? An Introduction

              Digital Archiving is the process of recording natural color images in the digital domain. The general process involves taking photos of an image (or as this presentation will focus on, a painting). Many sub-images are taken of the picture in which a small rectangular fraction of the picture is recorded. When these pictures are taken, readings are actually recorded by some digital camera. After this is done and the entire subject has been photographed with the digital camera, the information is processed. Since the image is not being placed on film, there is no concern about the film aging. After these sub-images are photographed, they are mosaiced together. This part of the process involves many complex algorithms. As long as there is a way to keep the information in a form that can be re-produced, the process would be valuable. Image engineers discuss the number of pixels per unit area. This is a measure of resolution since the more amount of information used to describe a given area of painting, the more detail that will be available to describe the area.

            One of the two projects that this presentation will investigate is the Visual Art System for Archiving and Retrieval of Images (VASARI) project. This project was instituted by the European Community. One of it's goals was to replace photography as a recording material. Photographs age, and may not have the same high-resolution capabilities as digital medium.

            Below is a piece of art from the VIDEOMUSEUM, a gallery that is using the results of the VASARI project.

Amedeo Modigliani

      One of the current roles of VASARI is the promotion of EVA (Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts), an organization that applies visual art techniques. Below are two pictures taken from EVA conferences.

Musée d'Orsay

Palazzo dei Congressi

            As the previous images show, as well as many more on file also, digital archiving is an important part of the art industry, and its impact is very well felt throughout the world.

            Digital archiving is not limited to the VASARI and MARC (a project linked to the VASARI project) projects. In fact, before either of the two projects got started, The Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France had digital images on record; however, they were created from replicas. The Open University of The Netherlands was making extensive use of interactive electronic media. Malibu's J. Paul Getty museum had produced a touch-screen videodisc for its ancient Greek vase collection. All of these systems, however, had not combined the arts of high resolution and colorimetry as the VASARI and MARC projects did.

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