The digital atheneum: New approaches for preserving, restoring and analyzing damaged manuscripts

This paper presents research focused on developing new techniques and algorithms for the digital acquisition, restoration, and study of damaged manuscripts. We present results from an acquisition effort in partnership with the British Library, funded through the NSF DLI-2 program, designed to capture 3-D models of old and damaged manuscripts. We show how these 3-D facsimiles can be analyzed and manipulated in ways that are tedious or even impossible if confined to the physical manuscript. In particular, we present results from a restoration framework we have developed for "flattening" the 3-D representation of badly warped manuscripts. We expect these research directions to give scholars more sophisticated methods to preserve, restore, and better understand the physical objects they study.