Tripont CHS and Phase One at the MuseumDigit 2019 conference

Eric Joakim’s presentation on Phase One’s multispectral imaging technology

On 26–27 November we were present as main sponsor and exhibitor at the Hungarian National Museum, at the most exciting museum-technology event in the region. At the conference, Eric Joakim, director of the Cultural Heritage Solutions business unit of the Danish Phase One, the manufacturer of our cameras, gave a presentation, and then, on the third day of the event, a workshop.

Conference and demo digitisation

At the conference Eric Joakim gave a plenary presentation on the multispectral capabilities of Phase One’s systems. With this technology, artworks can also be examined in the ultraviolet and infrared ranges, outside the range of visible light.

In parallel with the conference we set up a digitisation workstation with Phase One iXG and XF cameras, where we digitised a few special pieces from the MNM collection, including transparent and reflective originals and 3D objects.

We photographed large maps, a watercolour on a special theme, miniatures made with a unique technique, a copperplate engraving, glass negatives, insects and a model bus – that is, objects of varied size and character – in order to illustrate the versatility of our equipment.

There was also huge interest in the other device we distribute, the high-performance yet gentle and contactless book digitiser Treventus ScanRobot.

At the exhibition we were able to talk with professionals from various museum-technology fields about their needs. We were actually able to propose a solution for each of them, from photographing microscopic objects to the three-dimensional scanning of locomotives, or the digitisation of libraries of tens of thousands of volumes.

Phase One CHS workshop

Eric Joakim, director of Phase One’s CHS business unit, presented Phase One’s system developed for cultural heritage digitisation, the essence of which is that the cameras, the capture equipment and the camera-control and image-processing software work together perfectly. The workflow can be automated to a great extent, so the coordinated system can carry out high-quality digitisation in large volumes and productively.

Multispectral imaging

The speaker then presented the multispectral capability of Phase One’s systems in more detail. He brought examples from various fields where this technology provides useful information for researchers and other professionals.

(the images above are from Mike Toth, RB Toth and Associates, www.rbtoth.com)

Cost-effectiveness

Eric also said that, since the equipment is very durable and work with it is so efficient, an outstandingly good price/performance ratio can be achieved in terms of the costs of the whole digitisation process, and other cost items, e.g. time spent, post-processing costs, maintenance and service fees, etc., can be kept low in the long term.

Reliability

It was also said that Phase One has so much confidence in its equipment that it gives a warranty of 5 years on some cameras, and of up to 1 million exposures on the shutter mechanism of the iXG. The company considers customer satisfaction so important that if something happens to the cameras, even if they are merely dropped, it provides a replacement in the shortest possible time, so that ongoing work does not have to stop during the administration and/or repair.

Finally, Péter Peti, head of Tripont CHS, demonstrated fully sharp object imaging, the Focus Stacking technology, with a piece of the unparalleled Hun-period gold find, the Nagyszéksós treasure (interestingly, we recently digitised a glass negative of this very same object, made in the 1920s).

And also images of several wonderful objects made available to us by the MNM.

Thanks to the organisers and participants

Overall we found the conference very successful and useful, and we hope you did too. We thank the staff of the National Technical Information Centre and Library (OMIKK) and the Hungarian National Museum for the professional organisation, and congratulate the other exhibitors. We could have spent days getting to know their exhibited systems! And of course we thank every visitor for honouring us with their interest!

We have prepared a short questionnaire, and we would be very grateful if you could spare 1 more minute to evaluate the event and the presence of Phase One CHS and Tripont CHS.

FILL IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Please send your questions, opinions and suggestions to us at: chs@tripont.hu