VRTI Team Members Co-Author Article on Advanced Imaging Use in Historic Documents

• The potential of advanced imaging techniques and processing image methods to recover unreadable text in historic documents affected by chemical damage, as a consequence of the application of ink enhancement reagents in the 19th century (“galling”), was demonstrated.
• High resolution multiband imaging (MBI) techniques, namely UV-induced visible fluorescence (UVL) and UV reflected (UVR) imaging, were efficient for the recovery of unreadable text in documents with faded ink, soiled parchment and moderate localised galling.
• The contents of documents affected by severe chemical damage were recoverable by means of reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) in the VNIR and micro X ray fluorescence imaging.
• Image processing methods such as PCA or elemental map addition and subtraction were key for an increased readability of the text in the chemically damaged documents.
• Combining these techniques, the legibility of 31 documents from the collection of the National Archives of the UK could be significantly improved, providing new relevant information for the medieval history of Ireland.

To learn more about Dr Lucía Pereira Pardo’s work, click here to visit our “Old Documents, New Technology” Hidden Story!