Thermographic Imaging in Cultural Heritage: A Short Review

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 23; p. 9076
• Main Authors: Dritsa, Vasiliki, Orazi, Noemi, Yao, Yuan, Paoloni, Stefano, Koui, Maria, Sfarra, Stefano
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23-11-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Cultural heritage; cultural heritage investigation; Cultural resources; documentary materials; Ground penetrating radar; Heat; Infrared imaging; Mosaics; non-destructive evaluation; Nondestructive testing; Optical properties; panel paintings; pulsed infrared thermography; Radar; Radiation; Review; Thermography; Greece; ground penetrating radar; cultural heritage investigation; mosaics; pulsed infrared thermography; documentary materials; non-destructive evaluation; panel paintings
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22239076

Over the recent period, there has been an increasing interest in the use of pulsed infrared thermography (PT) for the non-destructive evaluation of Cultural Heritage (CH). Unlike other techniques that are commonly employed in the same field, PT enables the depth-resolved detection of different kinds of subsurface features, thus providing helpful information for both scholars and restorers. Due to this reason, several research activities are currently underway to further improve the PT effectiveness. In this manuscript, the specific use of PT for the analysis of three different types of CH, namely documentary materials, panel paintings-marquetery, and mosaics, will be reviewed. In the latter case, i.e., mosaics, passive thermography combined with ground penetrating radar (GPR) and digital microscopy (DM) have also been deepened, considering their suitability in the open field. Such items have been selected because they are characterized by quite distinct physical and structural properties and, therefore, different PT (and, in some cases, verification) approaches have been employed for their investigations.