The digitization procedure itself is simple: Once the barcode on the particular bag belonging to each coin has been scanned beforehand, the coins are placed singly under the scanner. A push of a button suffices to start the device. A specially developed optical analysis system reconstructs the color and surface features of the historical artifacts. The scanner captures over 1000 visual features per coin. The recorded images are inter-preted as measurement data. Reference samples and color charts ensure that every image is standardized and its color space is comparable. This ensures that the image data can be compared among different institutions. In the next step, all of the measurement data are transferred to the analysis software, which uses the data to compute the digital fingerprint.This project in Germany deals with relatively modern coins. But there is obvious potential for application of the process to ancient coins and other artifacts.
Cross-file under Numismatics.
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