Recording in AlUla: successful completion of Phase 1

Factum Foundation and the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) are delighted to announce that the first phase of their collaboration is now complete. The largest high-resolution 3D recording project ever carried in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and initiated over a year ago, aims at producing a 3D model of the archaeological sites of Hegra (UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008), Dadan, Jabal Ikmah and Abu Ud.
More on the recording and the next phases

20 YEARS OF WORK IN EGYPT

By the end of this year, we will have succeeded in carrying out the largest high-resolution recording project ever undertaken. We have recorded the vast majority of the tomb of Seti I at a verifiable resolution of 100 microns (100 million measured spatial points per square meter). The painted relief carvings have also been documented using composite colour photography at 600 PPI at 1:1. Factum hopes that this is just the beginning for the Egyptian team running the Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative. More on TNPI

The Hand of the Artist:

Over the past years, a team from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, has been developing image analysis and machine learning techniques. Using Factum’s high-resolution 3D recordings of the surface of paintings it is possible to distinguish between the hands of different painters with a high degree of accuracy. Experts, museums, dealers and connoisseurs will soon have a new tool to assist with a deeper understanding of the making and career of paintings. More on this project

Angel heads for Beethoven's throne

Max Klinger's monument to Beethoven (1902) and its plinth were carved from several different types of stone, but the heads of the angels behind him are ivory. Due to their fragile preservation status, the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig reached out to Factum Foundation to create facsimiles of the heads and fit them in the original sculpture.

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Aalto Silo 3D model

The AALTOSIILO team is delighted to announce that the 3D model of the Aalto Siilo has been completed in collaboration with the Arctic Drone Labs (at Oulu University of Applied Sciences). The scanning of the building and its plot was done using drone-based LiDAR and photogrammetry during the summer. The model will soon be updated to include the interior of the building.

Go to AALTOSIILO.com

New recording in Cleveland

In November 2021, a team from Factum Foundation carried out the high resolution recording of the Crucifixion by El Greco within the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Both the surface data and accurate colour were acquired using the Lucida 3D Scanner and composite photography. The project with Case Western Reserve University aims to analyse late paintings by El Greco, in order to reveal new information about the working practice of the artist’s studio through the use of machine learning algorithms.

Opening: In the Blink of an Eye, Transience and Eternity in the Spanish Golden Age

As part of The Auckland Project, Factum Foundation and Skene Catling de la Peña designed the top floor of the Spanish Gallery, in Bishop Auckland. The result is a space filled with great objects, all with their own specific history, biography and meaning in their original location, but with the potential to unlock a profound understanding of Spanish art when put together in dialogue with each other. Discover the exhibition

Heritage Lab: Installation of a Replica Scanner in Turin

Italgas has partnered with ARCHiVe in a project to record and share online its historical archive: a multi-layered and complex collection of documents, pictures, historical papers and essays, scientific journals and texts. A custom Replica 360 Recto/Verso, a recording system developed by Factum Arte and Foundation, has been installed in a dedicated space within the Italgas headquarters in Turin. More on the project

Grinling Gibbons' Crucifixion

Marking the tercentenary occasion of the 17th-century master woodcarver and sculptor Grinling Gibbons' death, Factum Foundation was asked by the Grinling Gibbons Society to record in high resolution of Gibbons' Crucifixion held in the collection of Dunham Massey, managed by the National Trust. Over the course of the summer, the 3D team at Factum worked on an accurate detailed and meaningful 3D model that can be seen in colour or as a shaded render.
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New approaches to restoration

The project to restore the Crucifixion by the Master of the Lindau Lamentation, a Gothic panel within the collection of the Museum Catharijne Convent, is advancing to its next stages. A team from Utrecht University, Leiden University and Technische Universiteit Delft visited Factum on October 15 to discuss the next steps in the digital restoration and the production of a facsimile.
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Facsimile of Titian's La Sapienza

For the exhibition 'Tizians Frauenbild' (5 October 2021 - 16 January 2022) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Factum Foundation carried out the recording of Titian’s La Sapienza (c. 1560) at the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice. The painting was recorded in June using composite photography, with the aim of producing a facsimile that was installed on the vaulted ceiling while the original will be in Wien for the exhibition.

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Digitising the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore

As part of the celebrations around the 70th anniversary of the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Factum Foundation's Adam Lowe and Frédéric Kaplan from EPFL discussed the outcome of the recording of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, an ARCHiVe project. The online presentation 'Recording the island of San Giorgio Maggiore', was streamed live on Youtube on September 27 as the opening event of AOA - ARCHiVe Online Academy.
Click here to watch on Youtube

ARCHiVe & Divirod: Research into new monitoring systems

Factum Foundation is happy to name Divirod as a new collaborator in the ARCHiVe project. In late August, the start-up from Boulder, Colorado, installed a passive radar sensor that uses satellites and locally recorded data to generate accurate hydrological models. ARCHiVe Online Academy: More information on how to access the free classes here.

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Recording the painted caves of Laas Geel

In collaboration with the Hargeysa Cultural Centre and the Redsea Cultural Foundation, a team from Factum Foundation travelled to Somaliland to carry out a skills and technology transfer while recording buildings, manuscripts and several sites containing Neolithic paintings. The team carried out the high-resolution 3D documentation of the painted chambers at Laas Geel: a complex of 22 rock shelters containing some of the earliest known rock art in the region.
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