More than a poplar plank: the shape and subtle colors of the masterpiece Mona Lisa by Leonardo

During the autumn of 2004, a team of 3D imaging scientists from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) was invited to Paris to undertake the 3D scanning of Leonardo's most famous painting. The objective of this project was to scan the Mona Lisa, obverse and reverse, in order to provide high-resolution 3D image data of the complete painting to help in the study of the structure and technique used by Leonardo. Unlike any other painting scanned to date, the Mona Lisa presented a unique research and development challenge for 3D imaging. This paper describes this challenge and presents results of the modeling and analysis of the 3D and color data.

[1]  L. D. Vinci,et al.  Leonardo Da Vinci , 1931, Canadian Medical Association journal.

[2]  J.-A. Beraldin,et al.  NRC's 3D technology for museum and heritage applications , 2005, SPIE Optical Metrology.

[3]  Marc Rioux,et al.  Active Optical 3D Imaging for Heritage Applications , 2002, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

[4]  Marc Rioux,et al.  NRC 3D imaging technology for museum and heritage applications , 2003, Comput. Animat. Virtual Worlds.

[5]  Luc Van Gool,et al.  Recording, modeling and visualization of cultural heritage , 2006 .