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3-D PROCESSING TO EVIDENCE CHARACTERISTICS
REPRESENTED IN MANOPPELLO VEIL
Jan S. Jaworski* and Giulio Fanti°
*Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland, e-mail:
°
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Padua, Padua, Italy,
Abstract
Tridimensional (3-D) processing can be used to evidence details in images; in this
paper this technique is employed to compare the Face of the Manoppello Veil with that of the
Turin Shroud. In particular, the 3-D processing of the negative image of the Veil evidences
some interesting analogies with the Shroud Face also confirming the results reported in
bibliography.
Differences between the Face on the front side of the Veil and the reverse one are also
evidenced with this technique.
1. Introduction
The Holy Face (hereafter called Face) on the Veil of Manoppello (see Figure 1),
supposed by many researchers to be an Acheropita (gr. acheiropoietos
“not made by the hand
of man”) image of Jesus, is worshipped as a relic in the Manoppello Sanctuary in the
Abbruzzi region in Italy. The color image corresponds to the traditional presentation of Jesus
Face with long hair and a beard, open eyes, half-open mouth and the nose looking as if
broken. The image can be seen on both sides of the Veil and because the yarn is very fine the
Veil is highly transparent.
Its documented history before the 16
th
century is unknown and scientific examinations
are scarce, as recently reviewed.
1
The comprehensive bibliography on the Veil can be found
in the reports by Falcinelli
1
and Resch
2
(both available on the Internet) and fundamental facts
were described in recent books
3
in a popular manner but also reporting some information
arguable from the scientific point of view.
Two opposite opinions were proposed as concerns the nature of the image, probably
also because the Veil has a specific feature: when seen at first sight it appears as a normal
artistic painting, but after a detailed analysis some characteristics appear that may speak in
favor of a supernatural hypothesis of the image formation. At first sight many brushstrokes of
different colors are evident speaking in favor of the artifact, but the fact that it is not simple to
paint on a byssus fabric also having evident nodes (fabric that should be discharged by a
normal painter) and the fact that there are different characteristics on the reverse side of the
Veil combined with the still unknown technique employed speak in favor of the Acheropita
image.
A number of historians of art
4
and the photographer Falcinelli
1
consider the Veil as a
work of art. Some scientists however excluded the use of different painting techniques
2,3,5,6
on
the basis of microscopic and spectroscopic studies.
5,6
Thus, for many scholars not only the
mechanism of formation but also the nature of the image is completely unclear.
3,5,6
Figure 1. The Manoppello Face as it appears to the naked eye: the front side on the left and
the reverse side on the right (courtesy of D. Vittore).
Some similarities between the Manoppello Face and the Face of the Shroud of Turin
(hereafter called Shroud) have also attracted attention in recent years. Their likeness was
proposed by Schlömer
7
and next extensively studied by Pfeiffer
8
and Resch.
2
Using a
superimposition of two images on transparent foils, it was shown that not only a general
appearance but also some details of the Face in both images are consistent. Resch indicated
2
ten congruence points which were used to perfect adjustment of both images one to another.
On the other hand, a comparison of physico-chemical properties of both images based
mainly on scientific analysis of the Veil made
5
by the second author in 2001 and including
microscopic photography, spectral analysis in a wide range of wave lengths and a test of
tridimensionality, indicated some similarities but also fundamental differences in their
characteristics.
Similarities involve first of all the shape and the size of the Face as well as some
marks of wounds like a swelling on the right cheek. Among the differences the following are
remarkable. The very evident bloodstain having the characteristic shape of reversed “3” on
the front of the Shroud Face is not present on the Veil Face. A hypothetical painter that would
have copied the Shroud Face should have first reproduced this sign; in the opinion of the
second author this means that the Veil Face was produced before the Shroud and supposedly
perhaps during the Veronica encounter, as suggested also by Resch.
2
Other differences are the superficial character of the Shroud’s image, i.e., the presence
of the image color “only on the topmost fibers at the highest parts of the wave”,
9a
which is not
2
observed in the case of the Veil’s image. The Shroud’s image is in monochromatic yellow to
light brown color
9b
corresponding to chemical changes (a fast ageing) of linen fibers, whereas
the Veil’s image is composed of bring-substances of different colors, but still unknown. The
Shroud’s image is not made of bring-substances
9c
but the color derives from carbonyl groups
formed in a dehydration of the polysaccharides layer out of the linen fibers,
9d
which is not the
case of the Veil’s image. Finally, the Shroud’s photographs after the software analysis showed
a clear tridimensionality of the image, i.e., the dependence of “the luminance distribution on
the clearances between a three-dimensional surface of the body and a covering cloth”.
9e
On
the contrary, the Veil’s image showed only very weak 3-D characteristics
5
as it is shown in
Figure 2. Some 3-D feature is probably seen for the hollow of eyeholes and the smashed
ending of the nose but in general in this aspect the Veil’s and the Shroud’s images differ.
It should be emphasized here that the 3-D processing was made by Brice 4.0
®
; it is a
software that takes as the input a black and white image and converts the various luminance
levels of the image into a hypothetical height proportional to those luminance levels, thus
forming a 3-D surface; what is reported in the following figures is the 3-D processed surface,
shadowed by a pre-selected light point.
a
b
Figure 2. A comparison of 3-D images of the Face
5
: (a) from the Veil and (b) from the
Shroud.
It should be remembered here that, as discovered by Secondo Pia in 1898, the Shroud
image appears in many body features as if it were a negative image. Thus, the 3-D Shroud
images found first empirically by Gastineau in 1974
10
and then mathematically by Jackson,
Jumper and coworkers in 1977
11
and investigated later by other groups
12-15
were always
obtained from the photographic negative, which corresponds to the normal picture of the
Body. The principal aim of this report, as it will be shown in the following section, is to
evidence the fact that better 3-D characteristics of the Manoppello Face can be obtained from
the photographic negative, in a similar way as was used in the case of the Shroud.
2. Negative character of the 3-D image on the Veil
The first author observed that in the 3-D image of Figure 2(a) are shown some areas
which should be convex on the relief (because a bright color on the image corresponds to a
3
short distance from the reference plane) but instead they are concave. Therefore he thought to
use a negative image to correct this effect.
The most unusual examples are the eyebrows which cannot be concave and the end of
the chin, looking like without the beard which starts much lower and deeper. In contrast to the
3-D image obtained from the Shroud there are some other unexpected concave places, first of
all instead of convex moustache at the both ends of the mouth there are black, concave
furrows. It is evident that relief obtained from a photographic negative will give the reverse of
concave and convex areas. Then, a question arises: are there any hidden negative 3-D
characteristics of the Veil’s image reverse in the respect to the distance between the body and
the screen?
The simple inversion of black and white colors in the image shown in Figure 2(a) is
presented in Figure 3. It seems that the obtained result corresponds to the normally expected
3-D relief of the human face much more than those shown in Figure 2(a). Now the eyebrows
are convex as well as the beard at the end of the chin, the moustache, in particular on the right
side on the picture, also the lips and hair on both sides of the Face. The resulting image also
shows better similarity to the image on the Shroud and some characteristic marks known from
the Shroud Face can be presumably recognized, as will be discussed later.
Figure 3. The 3-D image of the Manoppello Face from Figure 2(a) with the reverse colors,
i.e., corresponding to the 3-D image obtained from the photographic negative.
However, taking into account the low 3-D feature of the Veil’s image, some details
seen in Figure 3 can represent simply artifacts. The processing made by the second author
from negative photographs taken from the front and the reverse sides of the Veil is shown in
Figure 4. Basically, the 3-D characteristic is low for both positive and negative photographs,
but those obtained from negatives represent (at least in some parts) more accurately the
normally expected concave relief of the human face. Thus some 3-D features of the Veil’s
image are better evidenced by the negative image.
There are some differences in details of the image shown in Figure 3 and the
corresponding top right image in Figure 4. The eyes, resembling the Shroud’s Face, with
evident protuberances in correspondence of the eyelids (as discussed in ref. 16) are seen only
in Figure 3 and thus they are perhaps artifacts. The mouth is more closed in images obtained
from negatives (Figure 3 and right images in Figure 4). Of course, in Figure 4 the upper lip in
the images on the right (obtained from negatives) corresponds to the position of mouth in the
images on the left obtained from positives. Nevertheless, some other details are similar in all
the images obtained from the front as well as the reverse sides of the Veil. Thus, it can be
interesting to compare the Shroud Face and that of the Veil taking into account the negative
4
character of 3-D images even if such a comparison is not conclusive because of possible
presence of artifacts due to the low 3-D characteristics shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. 3-D images of the Manoppello Face from positive (left) and negative (right)
photographs of the front (top) and the reverse (bottom) sides of the Veil.
3. Comparison of the 3-D image on the Veil with the Shroud’s image
In general, the Face from the Veil, with its unsymmetrical cheeks which are not
separated from the hair, looks a little broader than that from the Shroud. Nevertheless, a
number of characteristic details and marks of wounds known from the Shroud’s images
17
(the
normal photograph as well as the 3-D relief) can be recognized in similar areas on the Veil’s
image, although their shapes and sizes are not identical. These characteristic marks detected
by the first author are shown in Figure 5. Marks of wounds include: a swelling of both
eyebrows (1) and a crosscut of the left eyebrow (2), a triangular-shaped wound on the right
cheek close to the nose (3), a swelling of the yoke bone below the left eye (4), a swelling
below the right eye (5), the swollen nose and a deformation of the nose septum with the
bruised cartilage (6), and a swelling of the upper lip (7). Other characteristic marks on the
Shroud Face which can be easily identified in Figure 5 include: a forked beard (8), a hairless
area between the lower lip and the beard (9), an enlarged left nostril (10), a few strands of hair
at the top of the forehead (11), and maybe also a transverse streak across the forehead (12),
which is however not clear in the images in Figure 4.
5
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