High Dynamic Range Imaging for Preserving Chromaticity Information of Architectural Heritage

FAIN: HD-50176-07

Texas A & M Research Foundation (College Station, TX 77843-0001)
Wei Yan (Project Director: April 2007 to December 2009)

The development of new methods, using High Dynamic Range imaging technology, of capturing and preserving accurate color information about historical buildings and other artworks.

This proposal seeks to enhance the documentation of architectural heritage. Precise color information (i.e. chromaticity, excluding lighting effects) as an intrinsic property of materials has not been accurately documented in the scale of large surfaces for historical buildings. Every day the materials of historical buildings are decaying and their colors are fading. The colors we can see today will not be the same as future generations can see if we cannot preserve the chromaticity information. We propose to develop a method to assist in recording the chromaticity of historical buildings with low cost and high efficiency based on the emerging High Dynamic Range Imaging technology. The significance of it lies in that by recording the chromaticity information, we can achieve more complete documentation for historical buildings and can detect color change of the buildings when measurements are done in a regular basis, which will provide important information for preservation planning.

Media Coverage

Preserving Color (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Phillip Rollfing,
Publication: ARCHONE: Newsletter of College of Architecture, Texas A&M University
Date: 3/15/2008
Abstract: Every day the materials of historical buildings are decaying and their colors are fading. However, the precise hues of these building could be seen by future generations if Texas A&M architecture assistant professor Wei Yan is successful in developing techniques to accurately capture and preserve a building’s color information.
URL: http://archcomm.arch.tamu.edu/archive/news/spring2008/stories/weiColor.html

Associated Products

Recording and Documenting the Chromatic Information of Architectural Heritage (Article)
Title: Recording and Documenting the Chromatic Information of Architectural Heritage
Author: Wei Yan
Author: Ajit Behera
Author: Pankaj Rajan
Abstract: One essential approach in preserving architectural heritage is the documentation of 3D geometries and surface textures of historic buildings. For example, precise colour information, excluding lighting effects, is an intrinsic property of the surface materials of building interiors and exteriors. However, while colour information has been recorded for small sample areas, it has not been accurately documented on the scale of entire building surfaces. This is critical, because building materials decay and their colours fade with time. The goal of this project is to develop a method to assist in recording and documenting the chromatic information of interiors and exteriors of historic buildings with low cost and high efficiency. The method takes advantage of emerging high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) technology, which can store rich information about colour and illumination through digital photography. By recording the colour information, in addition to the geometry and texture information obtained through other existing technologies, we can achieve more complete documentation for architectural heritage. In this paper, we discuss an overview of the problem and present our algorithms for utilizing computer vision techniques to retrieve chromatic information of historic buildings. We also present and discuss our experiments and results of applying our method to studies of lab objects and the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, Beijing.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S129620741000052X
Primary URL Description: ScienceDirect
Secondary URL: doi:10.1016/j.culher.2010.02.005
Secondary URL Description: DOI
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Cultural Heritage
Publisher: Elsevier

Towards Digitizing Colours Of Architectural Heritage (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Towards Digitizing Colours Of Architectural Heritage
Author: Wei Yan
Author: Pankaj Rajan
Abstract: Architectural heritage represents the glorified past of the rich culture and architectural history of any country or community. It is important that the heritage be preserved and maintained for the generations to come so that they can learn from the heritage about their cultural identities as well as their architectural history. One of the essential approaches in preservation of architectural heritage is documentation of 3D geometries and surface textures of historical buildings. However, precise colour information, irrespective of lighting effects, which is an intrinsic property of the surface materials of building interiors and exteriors, has not been accurately documented in the scale of whole building surfaces, except for small sample areas. Every day the materials of historical buildings are decaying and their colours are fading. The goal of this project is to develop a method to assist in recording and documenting the intrinsic chromaticity information of building interiors and exteriors of architectural heritage with low cost and high efficiency. The method takes advantage of the emerging High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) technology, which can store rich information about colour and illumination through digital photography. The significance of this research lies in that by recording the colour information, in addition to the geometry and texture information that can be obtained through other technologies, we can achieve more complete documentation for architectural heritage. In this paper, we present an overview of the problem and our effort of utilizing the advances in computer vision to document the colour information of architectural heritage.
Date: 10/20/2008
Primary URL: http://www.vsmm2008.org
Primary URL Description: Conference Website
Conference Name: The Conference on Virtual Systems and MultiMedia (VSMM) '08

Cast Shadow Removal Using Time and Exposure Varying Images (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Cast Shadow Removal Using Time and Exposure Varying Images
Author: Pankaj Rajan
Author: Wei Yan
Abstract: Shadows are the natural accomplice of objects. As such, they have affected various algorithms dealing with image segmentation, object tracking and recognition. A lot of research has been focused on removing shadows from images while preserving the information available in the shadow region. In this paper, we present a simple yet robust algorithm for cast shadow removal utilizing images taken at different times with different exposures. While different exposures allow good recovery of shadow regions, the time-varying feature is used to suppress the shadow edges.
Date: 2/4/2009
Primary URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4782717
Primary URL Description: IEEE conference website
Conference Name: The 7th International Conference for Advances in Pattern Recognition (ICAPR)

Recording and Documenting the Chromatic Information of Architectural Heritage (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Recording and Documenting the Chromatic Information of Architectural Heritage
Author: Wei Yan
Abstract: One essential approach in preserving architectural heritage is the documentation of 3D geometries and surface textures of historic buildings. For example, precise colour information, excluding lighting effects, is an intrinsic property of the surface materials of building interiors and exteriors. However, while colour information has been recorded for small sample areas, it has not been accurately documented on the scale of entire building surfaces. This is critical, because building materials decay and their colours fade with time. The goal of this project is to develop a method to assist in recording and documenting the chromatic information of interiors and exteriors of historic buildings with low cost and high efficiency. The method takes advantage of emerging high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) technology, which can store rich information about colour and illumination through digital photography. By recording the colour information, in addition to the geometry and texture information obtained through other existing technologies, we can achieve more complete documentation for architectural heritage. In this paper, we discuss an overview of the problem and present our algorithms for utilizing computer vision techniques to retrieve chromatic information of historic buildings. We also present and discuss our experiments and results of applying our method to studies of lab objects and the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, Beijing.
Date Range: 10/18/2010
Location: Texas A&M University
Primary URL: http://symposium.arch.tamu.edu/2010/presentations/recording-and-documenting-chromatic-information-ar/
Primary URL Description: College symposium website

Towards Digitizing Colours Of Architectural Heritage (Web Resource)
Title: Towards Digitizing Colours Of Architectural Heritage
Author: Wei Yan
Author: Pankaj Rajan
Abstract: One of the essential approaches in preservation of architectural heritage is documentation of 3D geometries and surface textures of historical buildings. However, precise colour information, irrespective of lighting effects, which is an intrinsic property of the surface materials of building interiors and exteriors, has not been accurately documented in the scale of whole building surfaces, except for small sample areas. Every day the materials of historical buildings are decaying and their colours are fading. The goal of this project is to develop a method to assist in recording and documenting the intrinsic chromaticity information of building interiors and exteriors of architectural heritage with low cost and high efficiency. The method takes advantage of the emerging High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) technology, which can store rich information about colour and illumination through digital photography. The significance of this research lies in that by recording the colour information, in addition to the geometry and texture information that can be obtained through other technologies, we can achieve more complete documentation for architectural heritage. In this paper, we present an overview of the problem and our effort of utilizing the advances in computer vision to document the colour information of architectural heritage.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://sites.google.com/site/bimsimgroup/reseach/reaserch-work/towards-digitizing-colours-of-architectural-heritage
Primary URL Description: Research Group website

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