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Capturing the Unicorn - this story has something for everyone: modern computing, digital photography, and medieval tapestries!
The Chudnovsky Mathematician (actually two brothers who work together) came to the aid of the Met when they couldn't make their sectional photographs of The Unicorn Tapestries line up into a seamless whole. It turns out that the restoration process had caused the fibers in the tapestry to change shape so it "moved" during the photographic sessions. The Chudnovskys ran complicated algorithms against the image data to make them line up correctly.
Most excitingly for me, when the Met conservators removed the tapestry backing, they found that the backside was relatively unfaded over 500 years - new, exciting colors :) I hope they got pix of the backside as well.
The Chudnovsky Mathematician (actually two brothers who work together) came to the aid of the Met when they couldn't make their sectional photographs of The Unicorn Tapestries line up into a seamless whole. It turns out that the restoration process had caused the fibers in the tapestry to change shape so it "moved" during the photographic sessions. The Chudnovskys ran complicated algorithms against the image data to make them line up correctly.
Most excitingly for me, when the Met conservators removed the tapestry backing, they found that the backside was relatively unfaded over 500 years - new, exciting colors :) I hope they got pix of the backside as well.
