Skip to main content

Art Forgery Detection via Craquelure Pattern Matching

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Computational Forensics (IWCF 2012, IWCF 2014)

Abstract

This work proposes using the craquelure pattern of a painting as a fingerprint to verify its authenticity against prior records. Craquelure are extracted and matched from photographs in a manner robust to illumination, scale, rotation and perspective distortion. A new crack extraction technique is introduced which uses multi-scale multi-orientation morphological processing and shape analysis in each orientation sub-band. Feature extraction – a Radon-transform based local descriptor at the crack junctions – and matching are described. Matching accuracy was 98.69 % on our database of 151 genuine unique craquelure images with simulated multiple copies of each pattern.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Charney, N., Denton, P., Kleberg, J.: Protecting Cultural Heritage from Art Theft (2012). http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/march-2012/. Accessed March 2014

  2. Taylor, J.R.B., Severin, F., Baradarani, A., Maev, R.: 3D ultrasonic system for finger-print imaging. In: Military Health Systems Research Symposium, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bucklow, S.: A stylometric analysis of craquelure. Comput. Humanit. 31, 503–521 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. El-Youssef, M., Bucklow, S., Maev, R.: The development of a diagnostic method for geographical and condition-based analysis of artworks using craquelure pattern recognition techniques. Insight Nondestr. Test. Condition Monit. 56(3), 124–130 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Abas, F.S., Martinez, K.: Classification of painting cracks for content-based analysis. In: Electronic Imaging 2003, pp. 149–160. International Society for Optics and Photonics (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Giakoumis, I., Nikolaidis, N., Pitas, I.: Digital image processing techniques for the detection and removal of cracks in digitized paintings. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 15(1), 178–188 (2006). IEEE Press, New York

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Gancarczyk, J.: Feature vector definition for a decision tree based craquelure identification in old paintings. In: Fusiello, A., Murino, V., Cucchiara, R. (eds.) ECCV 2012 Ws/Demos, Part I. LNCS, vol. 7583, pp. 542–550. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Zuiderveld, K.: Contrast Limited Adaptive Histograph Equalization. Graphic Gems IV, pp. 474–485. Academic Press Professional, San Diego (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Otsu, N.V.: A threshold selection method from gray-level histograms. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. 9(1), 62–66 (1979). IEEE Press, New York

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Arcelli, C., Di Baja, G.S.: A width-independent fast thinning algorithm. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 7(4), 463–474 (1985). IEEE Press, New York

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Lowe, D.G.: Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 60(2), 91–110 (2004). Springer, Heidelberg

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bay, H., Tuytelaars, T., Van Gool, L.: SURF: speeded up robust features. In: Leonardis, A., Bischof, H., Pinz, A. (eds.) ECCV 2006, Part I. LNCS, vol. 3951, pp. 404–417. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Bathina, Y. B., Medathati, M. V., Sivaswamy, J.: Robust matching of multi-modal retinal images using radon transform based local descriptor. In: Proceedings of ACM International Health Informatics Symposium, vol. 1, pp 765–770. ACM, New York (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Cappelli, R., Ferrara, M., Maltoni, D.: Minutia cylinder-code: a new representation and matching technique for fingerprint recognition. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 32(12), 2128–2141 (2010). IEEE Press, New York

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kovesi, P. D.: MATLAB and Octave Functions for Computer Vision and Image Processing. School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Western Australia. http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/research/matlabfns. Accessed March 2014

  16. Izenman, A.J.: Linear Discriminant Analysis, pp. 237–280. Springer, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Institute for Diagnostic Imaging Research of the University of Windsor for financial support of this research. Our special thanks go to Dr. Spike Bucklow and the Hamilton Kerr Institute of the University of Cambridge for their support in providing the craquelure images.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason R. B. Taylor .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Taylor, J.R.B., Baradarani, A., Maev, R.G. (2015). Art Forgery Detection via Craquelure Pattern Matching. In: Garain, U., Shafait, F. (eds) Computational Forensics. IWCF IWCF 2012 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8915. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20125-2_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20125-2_15

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20124-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20125-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics