About the project

The ‘Development of a novel and integrated portable non destructive analysis system for the documentation of artworks’ (INFRARTSONIC) project aimed to develop a novel and integrated non-destructive portable system for the determination of artworks paint layers profile in depth as well as the local distribution of the pigments in each of the paint layers. The system that was finally developed combine two modalities, acoustic microscopy and UV-VIS-nIR-mIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Data acquired with the two modalities in the same areas of analysis are jointly processed and correlated to trace the depth profile of the paint layers (ultrasound modality) and to map the pigments in each respective paint layer (UV-VIS-nIR-mIR spectroscopy).

The final result will be reconstructed as a three-dimensional (3D) model displaying the paint structure of the artworks in the selected regions of interest of the artwork. The two modalities can also be separately used according to the specific needs that each time arise.