Might John P.Jackson have been right in thinking the frontal and dorsal images of the Man on the Turin Shroud are subtly different? Different imprinting configurations ("LOTTO" v "LUWU")?

For background, see the post preceding this one, and the 200+ from this blogger that preceded that.

You see, thinking evolves as one experiments and collects accumulates more data, one's own and occasionally other people's.

Early on, here on this site, I proposed that the TS image was produced by heating a hot metal template, in the form of a naked man with hands crosses over groin, and then pressing into linen that was placed over a sand bed or similar (layers of sacking etc|. I didn’t give that technology a name, but will now. Let’s call it LUWU (pronounced loo-woo), short for Linen Underneath With Underlay.

Mark 1 "LUWU" method of imprinting from a heated metal template (Linen Underneath, With Underlay)

Later I began to have doubts as to whether the image so produced was a good enough match to the real TS. The scorch marks had well-defined edges, in contrast to the fuzzier image one sees on the TS. Might there have been a subtler way of deploying the template, while still retaining the idea of a contact imprint? 

Mark 2 "LOTTO" method of imprinting (Linen On Top, Then Overlay)

Thus was born the reversal of the initial technology, in which the hot template was laid onto a hard, heat-resistant surface, covered with linen, then an overlay, and the two layers (linen and overlay) then moulded with hands around the contours of the relief for a minute or two, using conducted heat (and discomfort) to signal when it’s time to stop. That methodology was given a name (LOTTO - Linen On Top, Then Overlay).

Since communicating these thoughts, I’ve tried to keep an open mind as to which of the two methods, LUWU v LOTTO, best fits the facts, i.e. the fine details of the TS image that one can explore with the magnificent Shroud Scope, especially the as-is Durante 2002 images, usually with some ad hoc adjustments to contrast and brightness with standard photo-editing software.

There are actually 4 possibilities to consider: 

1. Both frontal and dorsal imprinted separately with LUWU. 

2. Both frontal and dorsal imprinted separately with LOTTO. 

3. Use of LOTTO to imprint frontal surface v LUWU to imprint dorsal. 

 4. Use of LUWU to imprint frontal surface v LOTTO to imprint dorsal.

So which of those 4 scenarios, if any, can be said to give the best fit to the facts?  See the previous posting  with its 10 point listing of image features that make the case for the TS being a contact image, with no attempt initially to differentiate between the two imprinting configurations.

But look at the tail-end of that posting where I recalled that John P. Jackson, founder member of the STURP team, relates what he describes as his  “collapsing cloth” theory that merited a second look, despite this scientist’s candidly stated aversion to Jackson’s brand of “theoscience”.

Through googling, I discovered that Stephen Jones had persuaded John Jackson to place an account of his 1991 thoughts on his site, with Jackson’s caveat that his ‘theological’ thinking was not static. Fine, but facts are facts, and were there useful facts to be mined? Answer: a glorious yes, since Jackson had not only spotted what he thought was a difference between the frontal and dorsal imprints, which in itself was a windfall, but went a step further in suggesting that the dorsal imprint had some of the character to be expected of one produced by DIRECT PHYSICAL CONTACT between a body and linen, as distinct from the two being separated by an air gap, requiring some kind of radiation to produce an image (with no assurance that such radiation exists, at least in the world of conventional, non-miracle-requiring science).

Jackson’s grounds for believing the frontal v dorsal images were of different character, and my attempts to check that out with Shroud Scope, will be added to this posting later as an addendum.

For now, all I wish to say is that, thanks to the second pair of eyes seeing at least some evidence for contact-imaging (even if Jackson no longer holds to that view, which would be his prerogative) I’m now in a position, after carefully reviewing all the image characteristics again under Shroud Scope, to choose between those 4 options listed above.

I believe the TS image was made by contact-imprinting from some kind of template leaving some kind of superficial thermal, or maybe thermochemical image on the surface of the linen, and that it was done using Method No.3 in the above list, i.e. LOTTO for the frontal image, LUWU for the dorsal.

Note that it would be possible to imprint both sides in the one session, i.e. by placing the template face side up on the linen, and pressing down into the underlay for LUWU imprinting of the dorsal side, and then bringing the surplus linen round through 180 degrees at the head end to imprint the frontal surface with gentle manual moulding of cloth to contours using LOTTO. (Insertion of a wet pad or similar would have been needed to explain why the top of the TS head was not imaged - no doubt a conscious decision for keeping the two images separate while correctly spaced).

Here again are Jackson’s own words, from Jones’s site and my previous posting, with bolding of the key passages that allowed my own thoughts finally to crystallize.

“There are certain similarities between these images, for example, in color; however, there are noteworthy dissimilarities as well. The frontal image, appears as a blended, continuous shading structure that, as we have seen, contains a correlation with presumed cloth-body distance. The dorsal image, on the other hand, is discontinuous in shading and has a mosaic-like appearance; see Figure l b. We see, in particular, that the shoulder region is bounded by a sharp, discontinuous change in intensity. However, running through this boundary, is a pattern of scourge marks. Since these marks contain dried blood material, they could only have been placed onto the cloth by direct contact. Accordingly, if the body image was correlated with cloth-body distance over the same several centimeter range deduced for the frontal image, the sharp discontinuity would not have occurred. Rather, we would have observed, at most, a blended intensity variation from the base of the shoulders to a several percent lower intensity in the small of the back. Instead, we see a complete and abrupt dropout of intensity at the base of the shoulders into the lower back region. Thus, the dorsal image has an intensity structure more like a direct contact image than one that is correlated with cloth-body distances over centimeter range as for the frontal image.

More later.

It's  now later. Here's a comparison of frontal v dorsal chest/top of back from Shroud Scope at top magnification in both cases, in my favoured high-contrast settings.

Frontal chest (left) v corresponding dorsal region (top of back etc) on the right.

There seems to be some difference in overall image intensity (dorsal  being slightly darker) and maybe some difference in speckled character (sand underlay in LUWU?????), but I don't see the "moasic" character of the dorsal image that JPJ refers to. But he did not have access to Durante 2002 images in 1991, and may have been working from Enrie negatives (1931) or what he saw in Turin in 1978 when he  able to view the TS directly.

I'll repeat the above exercise with Enrie negatives, and if that doesn't yield a result, maybe call in on Turin, pretending to be there to service the air-excluding, argon-preservation unit ("we've discovered a small contamination issue that can be quickly remedied").  More later

Later again:

Here's a comparison of the Enrie pictures (from Shroud Scope) with added contrast and brightness.

Enrie frontal TS chest region (left) v corresponding dorsal (top back) right.

 As with all graphics on this site, one can click once or twice on the image to enlarge.

Nope,  I still don't see a difference in character. But I'm not rejecting JPJ's observation either, far from it. Maybe it's visible in the pictures that accompanied his 91 paper. Time to take another look.

 The online version on the Jones site refers to Figs 1a and 1b.

Maybe it's the quality of reproduction, but as much as I'd like to see the reported difference in image character (mosaics on dorsal side etc) I personally do not. The presence of all those scourge marks, which are not body image but blood we are told, does not help when trying to look body image alone.

More later.

Here are two images that are of interest. The first is a brass rubbing of that of an unknown man and wife, the subject of a letter to the Daily Telegraph in Jan 2009

Has anyone ever thought of performing a tone reversal on that image, to get a better idea not only of the 'look' of the original brass template, but of the couple themselves (recalling that viewing human beings as brass replicas does not always do them justice).

Well, I have, and here's the result:

Straightaway, they look more life-like.

How does that image respond in 3D-enhancement programs?

 Purpose of exercise: medieval (and modern folk too) are quite happy to take their brass rubbings, and see them for what they are - negative replicas that have an unusual quality, no longer life-like, but interestingly different. Few if any will feel a need to do what I have just done, using 20th/21st century  technology, simply to get more life-like images of the original subjects.

Have just reported this little exercise as a comment on shroudstory.com:

Colin Berry

July 26, 2014 at 5:24 pm

Reply

“My essential point was, not so much that this medieval forger, probably unknowingly, had succeeded in achieving the equivalent of a 19th century photographic negative, (why he thought such a process might have any 14th century value, we can only guess) but that using an inorganic template, it turned out that this negative was recognisable in the 19th-20th century as a real human being, and not a template at all! Mirabile dictu!”
Yes, but negative images that look scarcely life- like can have a value in themselves (e.g. brass rubbings) and, if one so desires, be tone-reversed to get a better idea of the initial template’s appearance and even the subject as they may have looked in life (or shortly thereafter).
Here’s a comparison I have just done, based on a rubbing from a mid-14th century brass.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyBTK516WH4zNeihTVMGfBOlagBT2UaeMMRE5HUPkwCn14f5maxylHO93VRdu4cTgfEZQqNZ47kLb-nZGEMuYcD4oXxS2Q5czutOYRdu1Yx79TmS2Iwi80Zd1poVEEHKxtNSnRi7GTTI_/s1600/medieval+couple+rubbing+v+3d+pos.jpg

The message is simple: just because one can transform a negative image from medieval times to a more human- like positive does not make one obliged to attach any significance to the before-and-after-images. It’s all in the processing, not the personalities.

Update: 27 July

I had been thinking of making a full frontal assault today on the 'cloth-body distance' concept that is now so firmly rooted in Shroud literature. I was going to summarise all the evidence from close scrutiny of Shroud Scope images, and conclude by saying that the TS image is a CONTACT-ONLY image (maybe softened with a little convection gases), and that it's definitely not an image that has been projected across air gaps, as per the radiation scenarios much beloved of shroudology.

But then I discovered through googling that I was saying all these things some 18 months ago, and nobody took a blind bit of notice.

Is agenda-driven ‘theophysics’ the real reason why John Jackson’s Shroud Center of Colorado is STILL pushing its ne’er- do- well radiation model?

Posted on February 17, 2013

Maybe it's the naming names (in titles) that gets backs up (or makes them hide behind the sofa). Heck, I get my name emblazoned across blog titles all the time, and 9 times out of 10 the accompanying text has targeted me for thinking unacceptable thoughts about shroud authenticity and/or the purveyors of shroud authenticity.

Anyway, just to remind folk what's at stake, here are two images from other people's modelling of the Shroud's cloth-body relationships. One I accept, because it shows cloth needing to conform closely to the contours of the "body", or as I would prefer to say "template", while in the other it fails to do so, showing large air gaps across which I say there can be no imaging.

See my earlier postings on the matter of the neck region.

Here's a summary diagram, redone with some (hopefully) clearer labels:

Update: 28 July  In a long and some might think excessively wordy posting by Yannick Clement on shroudstory.com we learn that Raymond Rogers also acknowledged that the dorsal side image had more of a 'contact character'. It will take a while to negotiate the many prolix passages to find the key sentences, a task I do not relish. For now I'm simply flagging up the new find. Please be patient

Update: July 29 pm

I've just been given a mild reprimand (yet again) for changing the subject on my blog through use of addendums.

http://shroudstory.com/2014/07/29/beyond-luwu-and-lotto/

To reiterate: this is my blog, my space, and it's not for other bloggers to act as style police.

The blogger in question has in fact ignored the main content of this posting, the one in the title (LOTTO v LUWU) and chosen to nitpick on a detail of the brass-rubbing addendum. My crime: to make mention of processing the image by tone inversion then 3D-engancement in Image J. I've failed I'm told to demonstrate that the 3D step produced 3D enhancement.

Correct. I never said it did. I simply showed the result after each of the two steps, and invited my readers to form their own judgement. In fact there is a small difference in the 'post 3D' image - i.e. shadiing effects that make the image less like a cartoon, clothing especially, faces too if one looks closely, more like a portrait, BUT I DID NOT SAY THAT. I simply left it at saying that the processed images were more 'life-like' and used that term immediately after the tone-inversion alone.

That site is becoming increasingly vexatious, especially for its constant attempts to trip me up on matters of pettifogging detail, and its systematic attempts to draw attention away from the main content and conclusions.

I shall be giving that dreary lacklustre site a miss from a while, having several ideas in the pipeline that I want to post here. I shan't bother to see how they have been subsequently mushed on that site, as indeed they will.