3D preserving XVIII century barroque masterpiece: Challenges and results on the digital preservation of Aleijadinho's sculpture of the Prophet Joel

We present our recent efforts in the digital preservation of a set of baroque sculptures made by Antonio Francisco Lisboa, known as O. Aleijadinho, which is an important American baroque artist. The set was made in the beginning of the XIX century and is composed of 12 near real sized sculptures, hand-carved in soapstone. These sculptures represent 12 of the 16 prophets from the Holy Bible and are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our group has been collaborating with UNESCO in a project that aims to preserve all these statues. We hereby present our initial efforts, consisting of the 3D digital preservation of the Prophet Joel sculpture. We developed a complete 3D digital preservation pipeline composed of four main stages: data acquisition, 3D reconstruction, texture generation and 3D model visualization. By evaluating our results in this first sculpture, we discuss the improvements we conceived before applying our pipeline in the remaining ones. Finally, we present the 3D model of the Prophet which registers the sculpture's current state and will be used in restoration, research and educational activities. We believe this contribution may be useful to guide further research on similar scenarios, showing how to avoid some practical mistakes and achieve good results. (C) 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.