New Project for Daniel Reetz?
Posted: 04 Aug 2012, 12:26
http://vimeo.com/22606936
The time has come when we need a DIY solution for reading books that have been charred by a volcanic eruption, fused with water, and buried under tons of volcanic rock millenia ago. I mention Mr. Reetz because I'm sure he has lots of spare time at the moment, and also because he might have some advice for what dumpsters to look in for scrounging some Micro-CT equipment.
On a serious note, this paper provides some intriguing questions (which, in fairness, the References may answer when I have more than a half-hour to devote to this inquiry). It seems that this technique couldn't read (all) the text on the rolls because 1) Their algorithms require 1 voxel of space in 3 dimensions between layers (here, 10 microns), 2) the convoluted folds of the rolls contributed to the #1 problem while requiring lots of expert tweaking on the level of the individual layer, and 3) the carbon pigment used on the papyri is difficult to distinguish from the charred substrate. Otherwise, they'd had success with "similar items". Am I to take from this that right now, one could stick a medieval codex (with more loosely bound calfskin sheets in parallel flat planes bearing different inks) in one of these micro-CT scanners and use their algorithms to recover the text from it, unopened? Or less likely, from a more modern bound book? I assume the answers are in the References (I'll bump the thread if I find out one way or another), but if so I wonder how much it costs to operate such a machine, and whether that might be the future of preservation efforts.
The time has come when we need a DIY solution for reading books that have been charred by a volcanic eruption, fused with water, and buried under tons of volcanic rock millenia ago. I mention Mr. Reetz because I'm sure he has lots of spare time at the moment, and also because he might have some advice for what dumpsters to look in for scrounging some Micro-CT equipment.
On a serious note, this paper provides some intriguing questions (which, in fairness, the References may answer when I have more than a half-hour to devote to this inquiry). It seems that this technique couldn't read (all) the text on the rolls because 1) Their algorithms require 1 voxel of space in 3 dimensions between layers (here, 10 microns), 2) the convoluted folds of the rolls contributed to the #1 problem while requiring lots of expert tweaking on the level of the individual layer, and 3) the carbon pigment used on the papyri is difficult to distinguish from the charred substrate. Otherwise, they'd had success with "similar items". Am I to take from this that right now, one could stick a medieval codex (with more loosely bound calfskin sheets in parallel flat planes bearing different inks) in one of these micro-CT scanners and use their algorithms to recover the text from it, unopened? Or less likely, from a more modern bound book? I assume the answers are in the References (I'll bump the thread if I find out one way or another), but if so I wonder how much it costs to operate such a machine, and whether that might be the future of preservation efforts.