Department of Image Processing

The Nephele system was designed for archiving and work with painting material research reports. The content of this extended database system reflects the structure of the report, which describes the process of material research of given artwork. It contains all acquired information about
the object: general information about the artwork itself and its author, information about samples taken off of the artwork at several places, scanned parts, and results of chemical analyses. Such database with broad spectrum of reports can serve as the knowledge base for future restoration cases. Possibly the most important functionality of the system is the search function, which selects required reports. The user has two options: to use textual information for looking up the report, or content-based image retrieval, which compares archived image data with the query image sample. The latter is enabled due to the included image processing modules, which go beyond the ordinary database functionality and are intensively used in the very process of artwork analysis and report creation. The illustrative example of Nephele user interface can be seen below. The restored artwork is shown, with VIS, UV and SEM images of one microscopic cross-section. The software was implemented in C++ programming language with .NET framework support on client side. The database is based on relational model with SQL querying language.

More information about image processing methods included in Nephele system can be found here.

Publications: 

• Zitová Barbara, Beneš Miroslav, Hradilová J., Hradil David: Analysis of painting materials on multimodal microscopic level , Proceedings of SPIE IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging 2010 , Eds: Stork D. G., Coddington J., Bentkowska-Kafel A., IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging 2010, (San Jose, US, 17.01.2010–21.01.2010), Download PDF
• Beneš Miroslav, Zitová Barbara, Hradilová J., Hradil David: Image processing in material analyses of artworks, Proceedings of VISAPP 2008, Eds: Ranchordas A. K. N., Araujo H. J., VISAPP Interantional Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications, (Funchal, Madeira, PT, 22.01.2008-25.01.2008)
• Beneš Miroslav, Zitová Barbara, Hradilová J., Hradil David: The Material Description and Classification in Nephele System for Artwork Restoration, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, Eds: Ioannides M., Addison A., Georgopoulos A., Kalisperis L., VSMM International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, (Limassol, CY, 20.10.2008-25.10.2008), Download PDF
• Zitová Barbara, Beneš Miroslav, Hradil David, Hradilová J.: Nephele:Electronic Database of Materials Research of Paintings, The Future of Heritage, The 3rd Annual Ename International Colloquium, (Gent, BE, 21.03.07-24.03.07)
• Hradilová J., Beneš Miroslav, Zitová Barbara: Projekt elektronické databáze výsledků materiálového průzkumu malířských děl, Technologia Artis, p. 64-69, Nové metody a témata v analýze malířských výtvarných děl, (Praha, CZ, 07.11.2006-07.11.2006)
• Beneš Miroslav, Zitová Barbara: Wavelets for Texture Description in Nephele System, WDS'06 Proceedings of Contributed Papers, p. 151-156, Eds: Šafránková J., Pavlů J., Annual Conference of Doctoral Students /15./ WDS´06 - Week of doctoral students 2006, (Praha, CZ, 06.06.2006-09.06.2006), Download PDF
• Beneš Miroslav, Zitová Barbara: Nephele: Databáze restaurátorských zpráv s možností vyhledávání podle textové a obrazové informace, ÚTIA AV ČR, (Praha 2005), Internal Publication 2005/43