Image-Based Empirical Information Acquisition, Scientific Reliability, and Long-Term Digital Preservation for the Natural Sciences and Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The tools and standards of best practice adopted by natural science and cultural heritage (CH) professionals will determine the digital future of natural science and CH digital imaging work. This tutorial discusses emerging digital technologies and explores issues influencing widespread adoption of digital practices for CH and the natural sciences. The tutorial explores a possible digital future for natural science and CH through key principles: adoption of digital surrogates, empirical (Scientific) provenance, perpetual digital conservation, and the democratization of technology. The tutorial discusses multiple image based technologies along with current research including; Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), Photometric Stereo, and new research in the next generation of multi-view RTI. This research involves decomposition of the reflectance function into view dependent and view independent components, extending stereo correspondence methods. These technologies are then used to produce digital surrogates that can serve as trusted representations of “real world” content in digital form. The tutorial also explores how empirical provenance can contribute to the authenticity and reliability of digital surrogates, while perpetual digital conservation can ensure that digital surrogates will be archived and available for future generations. The tutorial investigates the role of semantically based knowledge management strategies and their role in simplifying ease of use by natural science and CH professionals as well as long term preservation activities. The tutorial also investigates these emerging technologies’ potential to democratize digital technology, making digital workflows easy to adopt and make natural science and CH materials widely available to diverse audiences. The tutorial concludes with hands-on demonstrations of image-based capture and processing methods and a practical problem solving Q and A with the audience.