Ultra-high definition acquisition and interactive visualization

LCAV Laboratory & startup ARTMYN
Loïc Baboulaz, Alexandre Catsicas and Julien Lalande

The pictorial layer of a painting is comprised of irregularities which cause the work itself to look different from its photograph. Added to this are the different reactions of pigments to the light that illuminates them – one more element that makes a truly faithful photographic rendering of the work particularly difficult. This is especially so for the Outrenoirs of Pierre Soulages since the painter explores in them a surface that is painted black but is of infinite subtlety, and equally important is the relationship of that subtlety to its environment through light.

The startup ARTMYN, which arose out of the Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV), immortalizes artworks with unprecedented accuracy. Through a clean capture structure (a hemisphere studded with 60 light sources connected to a camera), ARTMYN not only photographs the work, but it also generates an infinitely explorable reconstitution in the form of 5D interactive visualization: beyond the three recognized dimensions, it is possible to change the perspective and digitally alter the emission angle of the light that illuminates the painting.

Thus, it goes beyond the traditional limits of photographic reproduction, not only in terms of the accuracy of image acquisition, but also in terms of the potential for mediation, inventory and conservation.

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