Wednesday 5 February 2014

The face of St. Anthony is reconstructed in 3D with free software



Initial words

This post aims to address the main aspects of the project Il Volto di Sant'Antonio, which addresses the facial reconstruction of this historical and religious figure. To illustrate this post we took the wide publication of interviews and news related to the project, in both printed field, online and television.
Subtitled in English - Interview about the facial reconstruction of St. Anthony - regional broadcast - Bom Dia MT (TVCA TV)

Background

In 2012 started the Taung project, a partnership between the research group Arc-Team, the association of Italian anthropologists Antrocom Onlus (Dr. Moreno Tiziani), Department of Anthropology and Museum Studies at the University of Padua (UNIPD) represented by Dr. Nicola Carrara. In this project we reconstruct the face of a human ancestor, the Taung Child. It was an Australopithecus africanus fossil of 2.5 million years. The entire process was executed with free software and this gave us the basis for further study of reconstructions aimed not only human evolution, but also the historical figures. The studies continued and became a series of faces of hominids. 
Subtitled in English - Live interview about the facial reconstruction of St. Anthony - national broadcast - Globo News TV
 
Between May and September of 2013 happened in Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in Curitiba-PR (Brazil) the exhibition Faces of Evolution, with the facial reconstructions created during the studies related to Taung project. 
 Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team), Moreno Tiziani (Antrocom Onlus) and Dr. Nicola Carrara (UNIPD) - Taung Project
  
The exhibition consisted of replicas of human ancestors (hominids) scanned in 3D by archaeologist Dr. Moacir Elias Santos, from the Archaeological Museum Flamarion Ciro Cardoso, in Ponta Grossa-PR. The modeling of the muscles and skin ran on my own. I reconstruct digitally the facial tissues of those hominids, following a number of references involving both human anatomy, as gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Post on MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology amd Innovation of Brazil): http://www.mct.gov.br/index.php/content/view/353280.html

In view of the good results scientific and artistic of the work, there was an interest on the part of UNIPD to create an Italian version of the Faces of Evolution. Originally the stipulated date was: November 2014.

The Messenger of St. Anthony magazine - PDF with 90 dpi (Portuguese): http://www.ciceromoraes.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/O_Mensageiro.pdf

To complement the exhibition, I was hired to rebuild a total of eight faces, three of them related to human evolution and the other five for a parallel exhibition on Italian historical personalities.

The face of St. Anthony


The identity of the five individuals would be informed as soon as the basic reconstruction of each face was completed. When I finished the basic model of the first study, the results was sent to Luca Bezzi, the representant of Arc-Team Group from Italy, which was the bridge to the museum in Padua and Centro Studi Antioniani, an organization that takes care of matters related to the saint.

 The hidden face of St. Anthony, the result will be revealed on June 13, 2014
After analyzing the results, the archaeologist Luca Bezzi asked me if I wanted to know who the skull belonged. Before he finished the sentence I replied affirmatively. He then sent a link to Wikipedia in Portuguese. This link appeared the name St. Anthony of Lisbon. I was quite impressed, but I confess I had not realized who it really was. I thanked him for the honor and follow for other reconstruction.

Page story in the newspaper Correio Popular, an important Brazilian newspaper - The true face of St. Anthony hidden face of St. Anthony

The fact is that I had not read the post completely, only the top of the page.

 Page story in the newspaper Jornal do Comércio, other important Brazilian newspaper

When, out of curiosity I opened it again, I put in the Italian version, it is a custom that I see content in multiple languages​​. The name then changed to St. Anthony of Padua. However, he was not Portuguese? I was quite intrigued by this characteristic. I then returned to the Portuguese version, I was decided to read the entire contents.

Cover story of Sul Brasil Newspapers - "Mission from Italy" - Online version (Portuguese)

When I reached the part of the folklore and saw that he was the matchmaker, so here I realized who I had rebuilt. Saint Anthony, the patron saint of my town (Sinop-MT, Brazil) and the name of the hospital I was born in Chapecó-SC (Brazil). It was also the name of my grandfather and the creator of Blender, Ton (Anthony) Roosendaal, rightly named after the saint. I realized that I knew nothing about this figure so popular.

História Viva (Live History) Brazilian magazine - april 2014.

I began to ask some acquaintances about him and few knew its history, almost all unaware the plus names, Lisbon or Padua. How was that possible? Such a so venerated and yet so unknown person.

So I decided, as a good nerd, reading what appeared in front and watch all the movies that were directly or indirectly on the subject.

Cover story of Jornal Capital Newspapers (Sinop-MT) - The true face of saint
I found out he was born Fernando Martins in 1195, he was originally an Augustinian and later he became a Franciscan friar. He was a university professor. He used his intellect in favor of faith, although initially it was not viewed favorably by St. Francis of Assisi, but after San Francisco officially allowed him to use the knowledge of books to convert people and soften hearts. I also learned that he died on the way to Padua in 1231, he was buried there and four times did the recognition of his body, the last in 2010. The first time, thirty-odd years after his death, they found the intact tongue, which was interpreted as a divine sign and even today they bring preserved in a reliquary.

The documentary

Faced with an opportunity that was perhaps unique in my life and the lives of my research partners, I had the idea of ​​turning this work into a documentary. In this documentary, we explanaremos entire reconstruction process based on free and open software. 
TV story about the facial reconstruction of St. Antony - Gente TV (Rede TV)

The documentary will put two seemingly opposing subjects into harmony: faith and science. People who nourish faith will enjoy seeing the face of the saint revealed and certainly identify with her ​​appearance, because it is a more robust and more human individual that the artistic different idealizations suffered over the years. People who enjoy science, will be presented to the demonstration of the technical implementation of a scientific methodology that will reveal to the world the face of a historical figure, based on statistical, artistic and archaeological data.

The partners


Notícia do Estado de Mato Grosso magazine - Ed. 120 - Year XX, March/ 2014

To put into practice the project, it was necessary to contact a number of partners, both commercial, as of research. To the press, got the support of BW Communications, a company based in Sinop-MT, which has in its portfolio, important personalities and events of the city and the region. To work filming and authoring media, we have the support of producer L8 Movies and agency Nova Mídia Advertisements, businesses with large awards in state and regional competitions for advertising.

(Porguese) TV story for a national channel SBT 
In science, we have a partnership of the Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, USP (OFLAB) by Dr. Rodolfo Francisco Haltenhoff Melani and Dr. Paulo Eduardo Dias Miamoto. Thanks to this partnership, we could introduce the techniques of facial reconstruction with open software to academic and enhance them with the participation of researchers within a university respected throughout the national territory. With Dr. Miamoto, we developed a lot of research, ranging from the field of dentistry, passes through archeology and comes to medicine and veterinary dentistry in a profusion of interdisciplinary knowledge, including that we had already been awarded at an event at USP.
 
Interview for a local TV program - Se Liga Sinop
The Technology Center Renato Archer (CTI) is a reference in developing technology in Brazil. The InVesalius, an editor of CT scans and IMG2DCM a simple image converter in CT scans, are examples of two powerful free software at the Division of dimensional Technologies (DT3D) CTI. Thanks to this partnership, the bust of St. Anthony will be printed in 3D in color and real scale. This bust will be taken to Italy, where it will be delivered by me to the Museum of Padua during the days of the official festivities of the saint. Will be a gift not only from Brazil to Italy, but from Brazil to the world.

  
Newspaper story on Jornal de Itatiba - See the PDF version


All this will not be limited to bust donated, however it materialize all the knowledge displayed during the documentary. The big challenge we have in these next few months is to raise the cash required to terminate it. Although we have achieved significant portion of total trading volume needed to run it, we need yet a third of the final value. We hope to achieve it with the help of entrepreneurs initially Sinop and thereafter anyone interested in financing the project.

(Portuguese) - Interview for a local program - Cidade Urgente

Objectives

If all goes well, the material will be ready in November 2014 and will be presented in a Premiere will occur simultaneously in Italy and Brazil. The documentary will have no profit, what we want is to create an example of use of free software in practice. I understand that St. Anthony is a historical and religious figure who influenced crowds, and even if this job does not have religious biased, what you see is the miracle of the multiplication of knowledge, through work done by many hands, at various points in world, with the main goal of share with all the most information possible.

Bibliography

L. Bezzi (Arc-Team), C. Moraes (Arc-Team), N. Carrara (Museo Antropologico dell'Università di Padova), Il volto del Santo. La ricostruzione Facciale Forense di Sant'Antonio di Padova (document in Academia; document in ResearchGate)

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