ARCHiOX - Seeing the Unseen in Bodleian Collections

The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation is a not-for-profit organisation, founded by Adam Lowe in 2009 in Madrid. The Foundation was established to demonstrate the importance of documenting, monitoring, studying, recreating and disseminating the world’s cultural heritage through the rigorous development of high-resolution recording and re-materialisation techniques.

Using technology conceived and developed at Factum Arte, the ARCHiOx Project will use both a prototype photographic system (Selene Stereo Photometric Scanner, developed by Jorge Cano) and 3D scanning (Lucida 3D Scanner, developed by artist-engineer Manuel Franquelo and the team at Factum) to bring to life relief surfaces of some of the Bodleian’s most celebrated artefacts. This relatively unexplored path to mapping and digitisation should in turn present fascinating new avenues of exploration and research, as it reveals aspects of the item hitherto unrealised or recorded.

ARCHiOx will provide a free exchange of knowledge and approaches between the academic and technical team at the Bodleian and Factum Foundation’s experts, as we explore and demonstrate the potential of applying non-contact digital technologies to the study of materials held by the Bodleian Libraries.

This session demonstrates how the technology is used and the benefits it brings to researchers of manuscripts