Computer-Science Masterpiece
Computer science: Rock, paper, computer bits. Which best conveys history? Computer scientists are taking a $1.5 million gamble that creating a digital archive of Michelangelo's sculptures could introduce the masterpieces to the computerized world and help preserve them.
Michelangelo's David is still a few moments from the real action. In this marble version of the biblical figure, he is less shepherd boy and more muscled Marvel hero about to sling volleys of insult onto Goliath - a warning to enemies of Florentian leaders who commissioned the art work.
With David, Michelangelo Buonarroti created the first colossal male nude statue of the Italian High Renaissance.
Over the next few years, computer whiz kids hope to follow in the artist's path-breaking footsteps. They plan to convert the sculpture and Michelangelo's other masterpieces into triangles, billions and billions of triangles, an early step in the process of creating a three-dimensional computer image archive of the master's work.
The $1.5 million project - underwritten by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and lauded by Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation for its inventive approach - doesn't end with the 3-D digital files, said Brian Curless, a University of Washington associate professor of computer science and engineering.
Possible follow-up projects include an online virtual gallery featuring closer-than-life views of the masterpieces with options to zoom in at any place of any sculpture and choose among different lighting modes. Another option: using the three-dimensional images to create a CD-ROM that could outshine the two-dimensional images that played on computer screens alongside Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester while it was on display at the Seattle Art Museum.
The high-resolution files could also lend a hand in reconstructing Michelangelo's statues if the originals ever suffered harm. Already, touches from the devout masses have erased part of one work, the beard that unfurls like a woolly scroll from Moses' chin in a sculpture from the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome's San Pietro.
"Some of these sculptures have no cast. This is a way of preserving them for the ages - with one little asterisk," said Curless, who this month joins the team doing the high-tech work in Florence, Italy. "This leads to the open question of archiving digital information: Which lasts longer - paper, stone or bits? Some would argue paper and stone are safer at this point. But this, I think, is just a technological challenge that will be solved."
The Digital Michelangelo's Project's attempt to marry science and art is associated with a college course, CS 149: Field Project in Computer Graphics, taught by Marc Levoy, the project leader.
Levoy, a Stanford computer-science professor, is also tapping 3-D scanning techniques to solve an archaeological riddle that has daunted scholars since the Renaissance. Forma Urbis Romae was a 45-foot, detailed marble map of ancient Rome until it broke. Less than half remains, 1,000 pieces each weighing as much as a high-school freshman.
"Suppose one scanned these fragments: Could a computer program be written that could solve the jigsaw puzzle?" Levoy wondered. For attempting the feat, Wired magazine last year included him among Wired 25, techies "attempting the impossible."
Of course, you would have to travel to Florence to study with Levoy or watch him piece together the crumbled map. And students face the issue of being burly enough to help erect a half-ton gantry at each museum.
Such specialized equipment had to be designed to scan objects as large as David, who looms 23 feet high on his pedestal. Hand-held scanners and other equipment permit a laser to take images of hard-to-reach spots. Just as the artist chiseled into the night, using a hat he designed to carry a candle, the team will work into the wee hours to avoid interfering with tourists' views.
Sculptures large and small, from the slightly drunken, flaccid Bacchus to Michelangelo's monumental attempt to defy death at the Medici Chapel will eventually spawn digital replicas.
The reproduction process works like this: Just as a photocopier sends a light beam along the item to be copied, the scientists use their laser equipment to direct a thin beam of long-wavelength light along a sculpture. The more precise the monochromatic red beam, the more accurate its reading, Curless said. Some of the highly polished, fine Carrara marble causes the sharp laser point to soften to a puddle, a difficulty that is being smoothed out.
Each swipe of light is picked up by a camera that records color and distance to the object. Each completed scan produces a matrix that appears as thin as a deli slice, grids composed of millions of triangles.
On the computer screen, dozens of those viewpoints are combined to create the 3-D image. Extra triangles, overlapping information bits, are discarded and the jagged image softened to create NURBS - nonuniform rational b-splines, or smooth representations of the object.
The technology is sophisticated enough that marks from Michelangelo's claw chisel on non-finito - unfinished - works will show up as sharply as crow's feet in the mirror.
Still, Michelangelo's 16th-century mastery poses some problems in a high-tech world. Take The Pieta, in which a soon-to-be-reborn Christ lies motionless on Mary's lap. Between the slender fingers of his right hand dance shadows, a skilled interplay of light and dark to an artist, but a shadowy no-man's land of little information to a laser scanner.
In addition, the 2-year-old project is already finding flaws with art-history books, which put the David statue at 14 feet. It is actually 3 feet taller, a recently discovered fact that has caused feverish reworking of the scanner since it has to reach to the top of his head to create a true image, Curless said.
For all its gee-whiz wonder, the digital project will likely not replace the real-world awe of seeing such sculptures in person, Curless said.
"There is nothing like actually standing before the David," he said. "I think this is also why museum curators are not afraid to do this: They don't think that tourism will drop off. People still will want to see and be in awe of the actual, the one, the original David. Or the Pieta or the statues in the Medici Chapel. That kind of presence we're not touching at this point. We might come close with, say, a virtual-reality simulation of extremely high quality. I think we could come close." Diedtra Henderson's phone message number is 206-464-8259. Her e-mail address is: dhenderson@seattletimes.com