Lorestan Bronze Plate Design Identification by Nondestructive Radiography Method and Image Processing by Means of Histogram Matching

Radiography is known as one of the oldest and most widely used nondestructive testing techniques, where it introduces the most appreciated technique by producing images which are acting as unique fingerprint records of samples of interest. Among the interesting applications of radiography are archaeological and art applications. In this research, radiography was implemented for identification of a damaged art-historical material. The sample was a brass plate belonging to Iran cultural heritage. The estimated age of the plate was about 3500 years. The plate was discovered in Lorestan province, where it is generally called Lorestan bronze. The plate was damaged seriously due to serious corrosion environmental attacks, and recognition of the sample was considered as the major problem. The simple radiography method was quite helpful for the plate determination but the method suffered from some major drawbacks due to contrast and thickness measurements. The thickness measurement and corrosion/erosion evaluation were the vital components of the inspection. The image processing techniques and precise thickness measurement method were added to the digitized radiographs. For the digital image processing, a histogram matching algorithm and an edge detection method were used. After all, the resulted image showed an enhanced quality image of the original traces of the hammered design. The results showed that a good experimental setup of radiography along with the image processing technique can give a high quality radiographic image which is able to be used effectively for the identification of art antiques. The human evaluation results also confirmed the ability of the proposed method with a high degree of certainty.