Collaborative On-cloud Lab for the conservation and digital restoration of ColOUred heritage collectionS

Acronym: COLOURS

Description

Preserving Europe’s cultural heritage requires advanced digital tools that enable seamless collaboration among curators, conservators, and scientists. These tools must preserve primary data referenced to digital representations and twins and maintain documentation of analysis and reasoning processes. They must also preserve “raw” primary data to ensure accuracy and integrity and support future analysis techniques as the methods evolve.

Colour, a key element of cultural heritage, is critical to understanding the historical and artistic significance of artefacts. However, its preservation faces challenges such as fading, alteration or loss. Events like the Notre Dame fire highlight the need for adaptive collaborative environments, while public reaction to the Sistine Chapel restoration highlights the importance of tools that predict and communicate restoration results.

Building on 2 years of research and development conducted under PERCEIVE, the COLOURS project aims to make a major contribution to the digital transition of cultural heritage conservation and restoration by developing integrated colour analysis and restoration tools tailored to diverse artefacts, including polychrome sculptures, paintings, textiles, historic films and photographs.

These tools, fully interoperable with the ECCCH (European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage) developed by ECHOES (European Cloud for Heritage OpEn Science), will provide high-precision analysis, simulate restoration results with perceptual accuracy, and support interdisciplinary collaboration through hybrid spaces that merge virtual and physical environments. These spaces will enable real-time interaction with the digital twins, fostering inclusive decision-making among conservators, curators, and scientists, while ensuring accessibility for remote participants.

In addition, the project seeks to enhance public engagement by leveraging mixed reality technologies and digital storytelling to showcase restored colours and convey the authenticity of artefacts, promoting a deeper appreciation of cultural heritage.