Scan4Reco is an EU funded project under Horizon 2020 (grant agreement No. 665091). The project started on the 1st of October 2015 and will last 3 years.

Scan4Reco aims to develop a novel, portable, integrated and modular solution for customized and thus cost-effective, automatic digitization and analysis of cultural heritage objects (CHOs). One of the main goals of the project is to create highly accurate digital surrogates of CHOs, providing also detailed insight over their surface and also the volumetric structure, material composition and structure of underlying materials, enabling rendering either via visualization techniques or via multi-material 3D printing.

Material analyses will be applied, to understand the heterogeneous nature and complex structures of CHOs, to identify the broad and varied classes of materials and to understand their degradation mechanisms over time, deriving context-dependant ageing models per material. Uni-material models will be spatiotemporally simulated, based on environmental phenomena modeling, so as to collectively render imminent degradation effects on the multi-material CHOs, enabling prediction and recreation of their future appearance, as well as automatic restoration, reaching even back to their original shape.

Scan4Reco will further facilitate conservation, by indicating spots/segments of cultural objects that are in eminent conservation need and require special care, while suggestions will be provided by a dedicated Decision Support System (DSS), over conservation methods that should be followed.

The Scan4Reco framework will be validated on real case scenarios involving heterogeneous objects of various sizes and materials, in 2 pilot real-world use cases. To enhance the accessibility of the digitized cultural objects to the scientific community, field experts and the general public, a virtual model of a museum will be launched.

The impact of Scan4Reco is epxected to set the basis for the widespread adoption of sensor-based systems across the spectrum of cultural heritage objects and their conservation.