Geophysical Methods and Spatial Information for the Analysis of Decaying Frescoes

A promising application field of geophysics is monitoring and analysis of the state of conservation of works of art, such as wall paintings including frescoes. To this aim, two are the issues to address: the choice of the most appropriate survey instrument and method, and the analysis and interpretation of data coming from the survey, after their processing. This paper deals with a spatial analysis based protocol for the interpretation of data coming from different non-invasive tests, to improve the extraction process of the pattern decay. The case study is a frescoed wall of Gymnasium in Pompeii, investigated with the following non-invasive techniques: structure-from-motion photogrammetry (SfM), ground-penetrating radar, multitemporal infrared thermography.