About the Dome

Since 2004, researchers – engineers and Ancient Near Eastern scholars – of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) have worked on a new method to make the study of cuneiform tablets more accessible for worldwide consultation. To accomplish this, their main target was to find solutions to enhance readability through an objective registration medium (such as conventional digital photography). The solution was found in the construction of the so-called Leuven Camera Dome, combined with the use of a viewer computer program with specifically developed filters.

The Leuven Camera Dome includes a lighting system consisting of 260 LED light sources, mathematically spread over the surface of a hemisphere. A face of a tablet is digitized by lighting each of these 260 LEDs separately, while taking 260 pictures. Every recording sheds light on the three-dimensional surface of the tablet at a different angle. As a result, each part of the tablets surface is registered under its most ideal illumination angle. Afterwards, all 260 recordings are computed into one integrated file. This file can then be uploaded into and visualized by a specially written program, the Cuneiform Viewer. In the same way an assyriologist operates while holding an actual tablet, this program allows to identify each sign by searching for the best lighting angle for that particular sign. By moving the mouse pointer over the screen of a computer, the angle of the illumination changes instantly.

Download a Video showing how the Dome is assembled:

http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/assyriologie/afbeeldingen/minidome_assembly.avi