Scan4Reco: Towards the Digitized Conservation of Cultural Heritage Assets via Spatiotemporal (4D) Reconstruction and 3D Printing

The European Cultural Heritage includes a rich variety of cultural items and a significant amount of resources is devoted to their conservation and dissemination to the public. Living in the era of digitization, these efforts have been significantly facilitated by advances not only in traditional domains (e.g. material science, etc.), but also from more modern ones (i.e. 3D computer graphics & VR simulations). Within this context, the EU funded project Scan4Reco aims to offer low-cost and feasible solutions in the field, as well as to improve existing practices via the automatic digitization and documentation of a wide variety of cultural items. In particular, material identification and visualization will be addressed via multi-sensorial and multi-resolutional material segmentation and data-fusion algorithms, while the problem of the parallel deterioration of the composing materials, given certain environmental conditions will be dealt with via the introduction and fusion of statistical, material-specific ageing models. The conservation dedicated Decision Support System (DSS) of Scan4Reco will be built upon a simulation engine and will suggest optimal conservation methodologies according to different criteria. Last but not least, the Scan4Reco outcomes will be demonstrated through tactile multilayered 3D printed surrogates, while digital surrogates of the cultural items along with their travel in time will be exhibited in a dedicated VR museum. In order to familiarize the reader with Sca4Reco's research novelties and breakthrough innovations, the current paper describes its modules, elaborating on their connection to the project's objectives and to identified user requirements. In addition, we present the overall architecture of the platform commenting on the interdependencies between components and their functionality.