Tailoring X-ray imaging techniques for dendrochronology of large wooden objects

AI&ARTS Webinar Series — Alan Turing Institute

Speaker: PhD Student Francien Bossema (CWI, NL)

Date: 25/06/2021

Abstract: Dendrochronology is an important tool to determine the date and provenance of historical wooden art objects. It is based on the investigation of the tree rings in the wood. The tree rings are not always accessible on the outside of the object and thus X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been applied to visualise the tree rings in a non-invasive way. For large objects such as chests or cabinets, it is often impossible or impractical to rotate fully within the scanner as is necessary for CT. As a solution to this challenge, we developed a line trajectory X-ray tomography technique, in which the object is moved only sideways. We show that this method, although not yielding a full 3D image, is particularly well suited to reveal tree rings. Using this easily implementable scanning trajectory, sharp reconstruction images of the tree rings can be obtained for dendrochronological purposes. This result is of importance to the fields of both imaging and dendrochronology and opens up a wide variety of objects of which the internal tree ring pattern can now be investigated using X-ray imaging.

chair: Dr. Simone Parisotto

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