The museum between real and virtual: fruition of holographic projections for museum education and the role of digital holography for “Real 3D” imaging systems

Giovanni ARENA / Vito PAGLIARULO
(INO Institute National of Optics – CNR National Council of Research Italy)

Keywords: museum education, digital holography, fruition of artistic and archaeological heritage

Abstract:
The museums should be able to reconstruct, with the help of appropriate teaching materials, the connective tissue to which the objects in the museum once belonged.  In such situation the replication and contextualization of three-dimensional holographic images of artworks play an important role. They can provide real added value creating museums composed of both real and virtual objects, allowing for example to bring together fragments which has been separated physically or historically (think on collections of dismembered artworks in museums very far apart) or making available the reserves of “hidden” works, housed into deposits of the museums. Applications of holography to museum practice seem to be rather promising. Holographic methods may be a means capable of significantly raising and improving the state of technical equipment of present-day museums, being able to create “real 3D” images. Nowadays, in a number of museums, are presented projections incorrectly labeled as “holographic”, being instead 2D images displayed onto special semitransparent screens. To achieve real 3D display, the emerging Digital Holography (DH) techniques offer new perspectives for future museum applications, in combination with current multimedia systems.
History of holography and reconnaissance current about using of holography in the museum, current state of the art;
Methodology/Approach: Motivation and examples of museum applications of holography (for example the museum of Tripoli (Libya) and Eskisehir Archaelogical Museum (Turkey), the Virtual Archaeologic Musem (MAV-Ercolano-Italy).
Results: Identification of Digital holography features for display applications in the museum.
Innovations: Infrared Digital Holography for cultural heritage (An experimental setup developed by INO to make digital holograms in the infrared (this technique allows the creation of holograms for large statues and archaeological finds).