Site banner: see how a simulated sweat imprint (my wet hand pressed down onto dark fabric) responds magnificently to 3D-rendering computer software (ImageJ) before and after tone-reversal (negative back to positive image). Remind you of anything? Like those supposedly “unique” and “encoded” 3D-properties of the Shroud of Turin body image? For a more realistic aged/yellowed sweat imprint, see the many postings on this site since 2014 obtained with the aid of my Model 10 (imprinting off parts, notably head and hands, of a real body (mine!) onto linen with white wheaten flour, followed by heat-development of the image to generate carbon-based and thus bleachable straw-coloured melanoidins via Maillard reactions between wheat proteins and reducing sugars).
Note the title refers to the two-fold aka double body image on the Turin Shroud. Up until now this blogger/retired scientist has been content to model either the frontal OR the dorsal surface, using his latest white flour imprinting technology, but not both together. However he was challenged yesterday to produce both images on the same sheet, with a suggestion that it might be difficult to get the two correctly aligned.
Well, one is not given to passing up a challenge, so out came the usual ingredients and materials this morning – plain white flour, olive oil, linen etc. But what to use as template? It would have been more dignified to use the brass crucifix, but there’s a problem with those outstretched arm still in crucifixion mode if wishing to model the head-to-head frontal v dorsal alignment. So it was back I’m afraid to my plastic Galaxy Warrior, the same one whose imprints adorn the banner of this blog. His arms don’t cross the groin region, for full TS authenticity, but do park neatly at his sides.
Brass crucifix (left) or plastic Galaxy Warrior (right).
Let’s cut to the chase: here’s the end-result of imprinting off the Galaxy Warrior to get the iconic two-fold image of the Turin Shroud.
Two-fold imprint, produced using white flour, olive oil, linen and hot oven.
Two-fold imprint with parent template (Galaxy Warrior) alongside for comparison.
Close-up of the frontal imprint.Note the ability of the powder technology to imprint fine detail of the template’s 3D relief.
The same for the dorsal relief. Note the failure of the buttocks to imprint, a noteworthy feature for discussion.
This gives a clue as to why the buttocks failed to imprint. Note their sunken location relative to the shoulders and calf muscles. One also needs to know that the template was pressed down onto linen to imprint the dorsal side, whereas a different procedure was used for the frontal surface (draping linen on top and using manual pressure to mould the linen to 3D relief). The latter is better at capturing detail needless to say, especially sunken relief.
Here’s the double-body imprint after tone-inversion and 3D-rendering in ImageJ:
That’s enough for now. Comments and discussion relevant to the posting are invited. Photographs are available of each step in the imprinting process should anyone be interested.
Postscript: here’s a composite collection, using the above images:
Note the amazingly close correspondence between the 3D-rendered flour imprint and the 3D figurine from which it was derived.!
My answer to the steeped-in-mystique Turin Shroud - evolving gradually from some 10 years of science-based experimental modelling. 
The next goal is one I have set myself. It’s to completely coat the 3D template (Galaxy Warrior etc) in oi, to dust ALL OVER with flour, to press down into linen to get the dorsal image, then to turn the cloth back over onto the top through 180 degrees to capture the frontal image.
If all goes according to plan, the result should be similar to the one here, with imprinting of those frontal and dorsal surfaces but little if any imprinting of the sides, despite both being coated with oil and flour. That’s because of the geometry of imprinting, with vertical pressure only applied, whether pressing the template down into linen (previously termed the LUWU mode) or draping linen over the top and pressing down (LOTTO mode),which should in both instances fail to imprint from the vertical sides. We shall see.
Well done! looks like you are on the right track!
Thanks. I’m concentrating right now on contact imaging of the face, with the nose having been seen up till now as preventing one from getting a life-like imprint. Unless, unless… A bas relief could have a flatter less protuberant nose. I’ve taken a fresh look at the TS face in ImageJ in all kinds of modes – positive/negative/ natural colour 3D/ thermal LUT 3D, and in all cases I reckon the face is not fully 3D, but derived from LOTTO imprinting off a bas relief with a flattish nose! Joe Accetta and more recently Hugh Farey have both been talking about wooden bas relief or statues. My thoughts are going in that direction too – wood can be easily carved and sanded, then used as a template, either fully 3D, or bas relief, or a combination of the two.
What happens if you stand the figure up right & drape the cloth over it?
There’s no reason why the figure cannot be stood upright, after it’s been coated with oil and flour, MB, given that the flour bonds strongly to the oil. But one can’t expect to get imprinting onto linen if the cloth is just hanging vertically. There has to be pressure applied to get an imprint. That means having the figure lying horizontal, either with linen underneath, and then applying force from above onto the figure OR draping the linen on top, then pressing down onto the linen. I used both those modes to get the latest imprint. Getting the frontal and dorsal images correctly spaced and aligned was not difficult. One simply irons in two creases along both axes, meeting at the centre of the cloth, and uses the point where they meet as a reference (frontal and dorsal head spaced the same distance from the intersection).
I’m re-reading an early Jackson paper from 1989 right now. Leaving aside his OTT ‘collapsing cloth’ ideas, it’s interesting to see him describe the dorsal side as a contact image, due to ‘discontinuities’ around the shoulders and buttocks, while invoking imaging across air gaps for the frontal side. I interpret those differences as the result of imaging with linen underneath (dorsal) AND on top (frontal), either sequentially or simultaneously, with the difference that manual pressure applied on top to close up air gaps substitutes in a medieval scenario for Jackson’s proposed divine intervention.
Update/progress report for Monday 11th Jan
Have tackled 3 jobs today, and expect to report the results here in the next day or two, probably as two new postings.
The first was to see what kind of imprint was obtained if the ‘Galaxy Warrior’ was entirely coated in the round with oil/flour, and imprinted in a single session to get both frontal (LOTTO and dorsal (LUWU) images. Would there be lateral distortion in the two images, due to excessive wrap-around effect? Answer: NO, I am pleased to say, which did not come as a surprise in practical terms, but did from theoretical considerations, until that is I put pencil to paper. Yes, there will be a small diversion into geometry and trigonometry to explain why there was no noticeable lateral distortion. The reason is quite subtle. That’s two of the three jobs.
The third job was to explore the consequences of imprinting from a small terra cotta head I had fashioned from modelling clay, later oven-baked and painted, which initially had a prominent nose. (The nose and face have always been the greatest challenge in the contact imprinting model of the TS). Yes, the nose did interfere with imprinting, producing some odd effects due to creasing of the fabric..
I then took a close look at the TS face image in 3D, and decided to take drastic action.
That prominent nose on the terra cotta template has now been filed down to a less prominent feature, and will be retested tomorrow. While the nose is less prominent on the template I see no reason why it should be less prominent on the imprint, still producing I predict a 3D-enhancement in ImageJ. But then the nose of the TS does NOT respond well in ImageJ either. Go figure as they say.
The so-called wrap around/lateral distortion objection to contact imprinting is turning out to be largely a fiction. I hope to provide convincing explanations as to why, in both mechanical and mathematical terms. Clue: our bilateral symmetry about our long axis means that each longitudinal half of the torso with arm and leg has a mirror image, i.e. opposite half, that acts as a projecting brace/cantilever, one that greatly restricts the wrap around effect when the body (or effigy thereof) is enveloped in a large single sheet of linen and VERTICAL pressure then applied.
Let true science prevail…
and you have to remember that
I don’t write these words for hate toward you.
In other words:
you have to go away from the curious toys
(= the Galaxy Warrior is not a crucified man!
Or, at least [IMO], you have to use a
version of the galactic warrior who is at least
curved) and heating furnaces.
In any case, in my opinion, you have to work
in a more serious manner!
Is it too difficult to obtain an “Incurved version”
of your Galaxy Warrior?
Here I refer to a version with a bent back,
like that of a poor man crucified …
Maybe you do not agree with me about the
usefulness of a back bend, like a poor man crucified,
and then you can try to explain us your exact
reasons about the use of your model…
As you can see in this rough message there is
no reference to any technique of microscopy!
Only the simple geometrical model…
Only two positions (near “horizontal” and
the other “curved”) about the “geometrical model”…
Later this week I hope to demonstrate just how useful my ‘curious toy’ has been in exploring and quantifying the so-called wrap-around effect, one that “always produces lateral distortion” or so we are told. Be prepared for a surprise, like seeing a claim that a small wrap-around effect in fact produces a better 3D to 2D imprint than if there were none at all. That’s provided one applies firm downward pressure only on a whole body torso, or model thereof, plastic toy included, not an isolated head or limb, where there is greater risk of excessive wrap-around.
My models may be highly simplified, indeed mere toys, but they are used to check out the presuppositions that underpin 90% of sindonology. In my experience, 95% of the time those presuppositions are found to be unjustified or simply plain wrong. Speaking of which, it’s abundantly obvious how pro-authenticity thinking has coloured your own outlook and thinking, making your ‘science’ quote unquote highly biased and indeed suspect.