The 'Repair Project' is underway

The September 1th 2021 the project “RePAIR”, acronym for Reconstruction the past: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics meet Cultural Heritage. For the first time, cutting-edge technology will be used for the physical reconstruction of archaeological artefacts, which are largely fragmented and difficult to reassemble.

Thousands of fragments, like small pieces of a puzzle, will be rearranged with the help of a robotic infrastructure, equipped with mechanical arms capable of scanning the fragments, recognizing them through a 3D digitalization system and returning them to their correct location.

As the fragments are recognized and scanned, precision mechanical arms and hands manipulate and move them with the help of highly advanced sensors capable of avoiding even the slightest damage.

The subject of this experiment will be the frescoes on the ceiling of the House of Painters at Work inInsula of the Chaste Lovers, damaged during the eruption of 79 AD and then reduced to fragments following the bombings of the Second World War.

The group of mural painting experts from the University of Lausanne, led by Professor Michael E. Fuchs, with a study and manual recomposition program based on the analysis of the different morphological, stylistic and technical aspects of the fragments. The activation of the new project, which will proceed in parallel and in a coordinated manner with the one underway by the Swiss team, will therefore allow us to compare two working methodologies and their respective results.

The second case study will also consist of the fragments of the frescoes of the School of Armour, caused by the collapse of the building in 2010 and partly still not replaced.

Two iconic examples of large frescoes of world cultural heritage that are in a fragmentary state and are preserved in the deposits of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

The activity makes use of the interdisciplinary contribution of scientific and research institutes operating in the field of computer vision, robotics, Artificial Intelligence, with the fundamental contribution of Archaeology and Conservation of Cultural Heritage.

"The amphorae, frescoes and mosaics are often brought to light fragmented, only partially intact or with many parts missing. – declares the Director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel - When the number of fragments is very large, with thousands of pieces, manual reconstruction and recognition of the connections between the fragments is almost always impossible or in any case very laborious and slow. This means that several finds lie for a long time in archaeological deposits, without being able to be reconstructed and restored, let alone brought to the attention of the public. The RePAIR project, the result of research and technological expertise, thanks to the help of robotics, digitalization and artificial intelligence, aims to solve an atavistic problem. "

"From a scientific and technological point of view, the project poses important challenges to which we will address using the most advanced techniques in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Vision and Robotics” – adds the professor. Marcello Pelillo, project coordinator and professor of Artificial Intelligence at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.