DOCUMENTATION OF THE WORKS
The term documentation means a process of recording data of a heterogeneous nature with the aim of acquiring as much knowledge as possible on the artefact. As such, it represents an indispensable preparatory moment of guidance for planning restoration works.
In order to achieve this objective it is necessary to adopt heterogeneous methods and technologies by now firmly established as routine operational procedures: automatic, graphic and photographic techniques.

Documentation methods applied on the works of art of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo are the following:

PHOTOGRAPHY, using the light to advantage, records in detail the diachronic development of the entire process of restoration: from the initial conservation condition to the completion of the treatment operations, until the final results. This also represents an indispensable source of reference, within a well-defined time period, for any further activity.

THE METRIC SURVEY of the object, carried out with heterogeneous methods today with a high degree of technological content, does not limit itself to providing information of a dimensional nature, but represents the first and fundamental contribution to our knowledge of the work in its multiple aspects concerning both composition and execution through the graphics.

PHOTOGRAPHY APPLIED TO THE SURVEY offers great possibilities of application: the union of the photographic image of the object with its life-size dimensions makes it possible to quantify and precisely locate phenomena of deterioration, allowing us to document with precision the current state of the work of art from a technical, scientific and conservation standpoint.

THE 3D LASER SCANNING SYSTEM produces a three-dimensional survey of the work of art through a laser scanner that can obtain an extremely precise point cloud capable of recording the dimensional characteristics of the object, specific details on the surfaces investigated (for example, evidence of treatments, even minimal losses of material, etc.), and volumes.

Results
Through automatic interpolation of the point cloud, it is possible to reconstruct the surfaces investigated in different ways (square or triangular mesh, level curves, etc.) up to the point of applying a photographic image of the artefact onto them. A further function offered by the program connected to the scanner is that of directly “mapping” a wide variety of data concerning both deterioration phenomena and project planning onto the three-dimensional model, as well as recording its perimeter and area at the same time, an indispensable procedure for any further conservation treatment.

THE GRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION records critically and according to a rationally structured process all the different historical, physical and conservation phenomena visible regarding the artefact through symbols described in an attached legend.
The data is recorded on the model of the object, obtained from a topographically patterned photographic base.

Great assistance is provided today by the potential of computer-aided design (CAD) programs, above all in terms of timesaving, easiness of modification, possibility of combining images and graphics and complete recording also of the dimensional data of individual phenomena, indispensable for an assessment, even preliminary, of the conservation work necessary.

THE ARCHIVING OF RECORDED DATA permits the conservation of data and its transmission in the future as a historical record of the work.