Altar of the Three Kings
Digital restoration, 3D scanning, and a multi-touch museum application
A digital restoration project combining high-fidelity 3D scanning, photogrammetry, scan processing, and a multi-touch application that helps visitors explore the Altar of the Three Kings and its restoration process.
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Naples, latter half of the 16th century · 491 cm high, 308 cm wide · Layer view is schematic
The high altar of the Adoration of the Three Kings, in the Franciscan Church of St. Jerome in Slano, was made in Naples in the second half of the 16th century. It spent 25 years dismantled and in storage before the Croatian Conservation Institute restored it over several years and returned it to the church in 2019.
We worked with the restorers on the digital side: capturing the altar in 3D, and building a multi-touch application that explains the altar and its restoration to visitors.
Scanning the altar
We documented the altar with 3D scanning and photogrammetry, capturing its carving, gilding and paint in enough detail to serve both the restorers and the public.
The raw scans then went through careful processing into a clean model that keeps the altar's proportions, surfaces and fine detail.
The multi-touch application
The application turns the model into something visitors can explore:
- Every angle. Rotate the altar, zoom into details that are hard to see in the church, and pull back to see it whole.
- Context. Where the altar came from, who made it, and the world it was made for.
- Techniques. A gallery with animations that explain restoration work like bole application, gilding and polychromy.
- Layers. The altar's condition and the work done on it, stage by stage, so the restoration itself becomes part of the story.
- Cinema 4D
- C++
- Unreal Engine