How the amplitude modulation of n-laser stimuli could change our way to observe submerged and emerged worlds

A philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality declaims: 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make any sound?'. A similar question could be formulated in terms of color perception: 'If no light illuminates an object, does the color still exist?'. A technology called RGB-ITR (Red Green Blue - Imaging Topological Radar), based on the amplitude modulation of n-lasers stimuli, has been developing in UTAPRADDIM lab of C.R. ENEA Frascati for several years now. One of the major application of this technology is remote monitoring and digitization of artistic goods in Cultural Heritage (CH) environment: the exclusive use of lasers/photo-diodes for the acquisition of both color and distance information permits to obtain not only a very accurate 3D model of the investigated target, but also hyper-photos free from external light sources influence and with calibrated whites in all the instrument working range. By performing several case studies in real environment, this work aims at demonstrating the versatility of this technique in several fields of CH sector, like remote structure and color monitoring, cataloging and fruition. Recently the significant effort has been spent on looking for novel applications of this technology in the underwater environment for archaeological and industrial purposes. The lab results, reported in this work, demonstrate the potential of this technology to bypass the barrier created by the water back-scattering, especially in case of turbid environment. © 2013 IEEE.