Hyperspectral Image capture and analysis of
The Scream (1893)
Ferdinand Deger12 , Sony George1 , Jon Y. Hardeberg1
1
Norwegian Colour and Visual Computing Laboratory
Gøvik University College, Gjøvik, Norway
[email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]
2
Le2i Universite de Bourgogne, Auxerre, France
Abstract
In cooperation with the The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo,
and Norsk Elektro Optikk AS, we captured a hyperspectral image of The Scream (1893),
painted by Eduard Munch. In order to examine a wide range of spectra, we used two types
of hyperspectral cameras. The HySpex VNIR-1600 acquires 160 bands from 400 nm to
1000 nm and the SWIR-320m-e 256 bands from 900 nm to 2500 nm. Both cameras are linescanners and are mounted on an accurately controlled X-, Y- translation stage, covering the
entire painting. In our acquisition setup we carefully controlled the illumination to avert
any damage to the painting. The camera parameters were set for an optimal signal to
noise ratio and cross-polarisation was explored to prevent specular reflections. Depending
on the acquisition distance and camera we obtained different spatial resolutions, between
0.29 mm in the SWIR spectrum, and 0.06 mm in a close-up of the VNIR spectrum. After
the acquisition we normalised the radiance values, to compensate the non-uniformity of
the light source and stitched the acquisition slices together. Our data analysis is focused
in data visualisation and pigment identification.
(a) VNIR image cube, composed by the default
bands (611 nm, 560 nm, 454 nm)
(b) PCA of an SWIR acquisition of the painting’s backside.
Figure 1: Visualisations of the The Scream (1893).
1