The Museum of Pure Form

Digitalization

The creation of a highly immersive virtual environment consists in a first phase of digital acquisition (scanning) of the selected works of art by means of a no contact laser-scanner.

The scanning is made by means of a laser scanner; such a device is non-invasive since there is no contact between the scanner and the works of art. Any risk of damage deriving from contact is thus avoided and the art pieces are preserved from eventual accidents. The laser scanner scans the whole surface of the sculptures, by digitally acquiring all points of the sculptures.

A digital acquisition (scanning) of the sculptures

After the scanning phase, the resulting rough data undergo a process of modeling and rendering in order to obtain the 3D graphical reproduction of the real works of art. Afterwards the haptic models of the works of art will be implemented, so that the graphic 3D models may acquire a series of characteristics connected to the touch (such as volume, roughness etc.).

In the MPF system, the digital copies of sculptures are retro-projected on one, or more, non-reflecting panels through a Stereo Visualization subsystem, while they are projected on the walls of a CAVE in case the MPF is realized in a CAVE space.

At the end of the process, the potential visitors of the MPF will be able not only to see the Virtual Gallery, composed by the collection of 3D digitized works of art, but also to touch them.

Phase of the digital reproduction of the sculpture Scanning process of the Nicola Pisano’s Madonna and Child, a sculpture pertaining to the collection of the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Pisa

The cloud of points deriving from the acquisition phase undergo a process of modeling and rendering, through specific software, in order to obtain the graphical 3D reproduction of the real art piece.

The resulting mesh from the digitalization of the Saint John the Baptist, at OPAE (see scheda tecnica for information details)

A series of characteristics connected to the touch (such as volume, roughness etc.) are then applied to the graphical reproduction in order to convert the digital mask into a haptic model. The force are generated according to the geometry of the digitized sculpture.

The haptic model can have scaled dimensions in respect to the real sculpture, which represents an advantage in the fruition of big-size works of art, such as famous and colossal statues like David, Perseo, Laocoonte.

The concept of the Haptic Model associated to a given sculpture