Author(s)

Meng Jiehui ^1,2, Zhang Lifu ¹, Sun Xuejian ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
² School of Electronic Electrical and Communication Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Corresponding Author

Meng Jiehui

ABSTRACT

Ancient murals are invaluable cultural heritage, yet they commonly suffer from degradations such as flaking and cracking due to environmental factors. Addressing the issues of severe noise interference and low contrast between disease features and the background in murals from the Dandan Oilik site in Xinjiang, this paper proposes an automated hyperspectral disease area extraction method that integrates spectral dimensionality reduction with spatial enhancement. First, hyperspectral imaging technology was utilized to acquire "image-spectrum integrated" data of the murals. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was then applied for feature extraction from high-dimensional bands, enhancing the visual saliency of latent diseases through false-color synthesis. Second, to tackle weathering noise on the mural surfaces, the bilateral filtering algorithm was introduced to perform smoothing while preserving edges, combined with the Multi-Scale Retinex with Color Restoration (MSRCR) algorithm to eliminate the effects of uneven illumination and widen the feature separation between diseased and healthy regions. Finally, the K-means algorithm was employed to perform unsupervised clustering within the enhanced feature space, achieving the precise extraction of disease masks. Experimental results demonstrate that when the cluster number is set to K=4, the method effectively isolates exfoliation areas while completely preserving the original linework of the murals. These findings not only provide a scientific reference for the on-site restoration of Dandan Oilik but also lay a foundation for subsequent virtual restoration and spectral information reconstruction of the murals.

KEYWORDS

Hyperspectral imaging; Dandan Oilik; Degradation extraction; K-means

CITE THIS PAPER

Meng Jiehui, Zhang Lifu, Sun Xuejian. Hyperspectral Imaging-based Extraction of Exfoliation and Degradation Areas in Dandan Oilik Murals. Geoscience and Remote Sensing (2026). Vol. 9, No. 1, 1-9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/geors.2026.090101.

REFERENCES

[1] L. Zhang, S. Wang, Y. Zhang, et al., "Progress of hyperspectral remote sensing applications in the field of cultural heritage conservation," Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica, vol. 52, no. 7, pp. 1126–1138, 2023. (in Chinese)
[2] M. Hou, N. Pan, Q. Ma, et al., "Review of hyperspectral imaging technology in the analysis of painted cultural relics," Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 1852–1860, 2017. (in Chinese)
[3] C. I. Hiley, G. M. Hansford, and N. Eastaugh, "High-resolution non-invasive X-ray diffraction analysis of artists paints," Journal of Cultural Heritage, vol. 53, pp. 1–13, 2022.
[4] A. Harth, "X-ray fluorescence (XRF) on painted heritage objects: a review using topic modeling," Heritage Science, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 17, 2024.
[5] P. Pouli, et al., "Pigment identification in paintings employing laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and Raman microscopy," Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy, vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 905–913, 2001.
[6] Z. Zhang, W. Shui, M. Zhou, et al., "Research on disease extraction and inpainting algorithm of digital grotto murals," Application Research of Computers, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 2495–2498, 2504, 2021. (in Chinese)
[7] X. Deng and Y. Yu, "Automatic calibration of crack and flaking diseases in ancient temple murals," Heritage Science, vol. 10, p. 163, 2022.
[8] K. Qiao, M. Hou, S. Lyu, and L. Li, "Extraction and restoration of scratched murals based on hyperspectral imaging—A case study of murals in the East Wall of the sixth grotto of Yungang Grottoes," Heritage Science, vol. 12, p. 123, 2024.
[9] Y. He, "Tentative interpretation of the four-armed deity wooden panel painting from the Dandan Oilik Buddhist site," Art Panorama, no. 10, pp. 100–105, 2024. (in Chinese)
[10] S. Wang, "Murals of the Dandan Oilik temple ruins and the Khotan school of painting," The World of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, no. 5, pp. 26–27, 2021. (in Chinese)
[11] H. Hotelling, "Analysis of a complex of statistical variables into principal components," Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 417–441, 1933.
[12] C. Tomasi and R. Manduchi, "Bilateral filtering for gray and color images," in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), Bombay, India: IEEE, 1998, pp. 839–846. DOI: 10.1109/ICCV.1998.710815.
[13] D. J. Jobson, Z. U. Rahman, and G. A. Woodell, "A multiscale retinex for color restoration," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 965–976, 1997. DOI: 10.1109/83.597272.
[14] J. MacQueen, "Some methods for classification and analysis of multivariate observations," in Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1967, pp. 281–297.

Sponsors, Associates, and Links

---

• International Journal of Geological Resources and Geological Engineering
  
  
• Big Geospatial Data and Data Science
  
  
• Solid Earth and Space Physics
  
  
• Environment and Climate Protection
  
  
• Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information Systems
  
  
• Environment, Resource and Ecology Journal
  
  
• Offshore and Polar Engineering
  
  
• Physical and Human Geography
  
  
• Journal of Atmospheric Physics and Atmospheric Environment
  
  
• Trends in Meteorology
  
  
• Journal of Coastal Engineering Research
  
  
• Focus on Plant Protection
  
  
• Toxicology and Health of Environment
  
  
• Advances in Physical Oceanography
  
  
• Biology, Chemistry, and Geology in Marine
  
  
• Water-Soil, Biological Environment and Energy
  
  
• Geodesy and Geophysics
  
  
• Journal of Structural and Quaternary Geology
  
  
• Journal of Sedimentary Geology
  
  
• International Journal of Polar Social Research and Review