Goal
The goal of Aracne is to develop a tool to count threads across large areas in X-ray plates of canvases. Thread counting has been widely used to characterise the fabric of paintings, allowing researchers — mainly through comparison — to date works of art or determine their authorship.
Description
The main objective was to provide a tool to count vertical and horizontal threads across large areas in an X-ray image. We developed software that not only fulfils this requirement, but also includes the following additional features:
- Thread counting along the whole image, for every spot in the canvas.
- Analysis of the angle deviation of the threads from the horizontal and vertical axes.
- Analysis of the power spectrum density.
In 2025 Aracne was released as open tool on the website of the Museo Nacional del Prado.
Aracne is based on frequency analysis. This approach is not always the best option — particularly for many textile supports from Velázquez held at the MNP. We therefore proposed applying Artificial Intelligence to this problem, with successful results, and we continue to pursue this line of research.
More recently, Aracne has attracted the attention of the Egyptological community. From the Universidad de Sevilla, we have begun a collaboration with the C2 project in Luxor to characterise ancient textiles.
Authorship
The Aracne software originated as a request from Laura Alba Carcelén at the Museo Nacional del Prado (MNP) to Juan José Murillo-Fuentes at the Universidad de Sevilla (US), where the software was developed. We are deeply grateful to Laura Alba for her valuable comments, suggestions, testing, and supervision of the Aracne software, and to the Museo Nacional del Prado for providing the material — X-ray plates of canvases — used in this research.
Laura Alba Carcelén is a conservator in the Technical Studies and Documentation Department at the MNP, while Juan José Murillo is Full Professor (catedrático) of Telecommunication Engineering in the Department of Signal Theory and Communications (DTSC).
In the software development at the DTSC of the US, Professors Irene Fondón-García and Francisco Simois collaborated alongside researchers Marta Ternero-Gutiérrez and Pablo Aguilera-Bonet, and student Lucía Córdoba-Saborido.Download and Install Aracne
To download and install Aracne see installation. You can use the test image if you do not have any other. In the manual section you will find further information on the use of the SW. See license and terms. For any other information on commercial exploitation or request to process your material please write us at murillo@us.es.