March 3, 2026Open Access

A cross-climate study of solar-loading thermography for heritage: workflow portability via adaptive decomposition, low-rank projection, and active benchmarking

Key Points

Thermal performance achieved competitive levels compared to laboratory active thermography, indicating effective signal extraction.
Key benchmarks highlight that specific thermal regimes enhance the detection of anomalies, especially in thin layers.
Observational analysis confirms that environmental context influences defect response, impacting diagnostic accuracy in heritage applications.
This approach provides a portable solution that improves field diagnostics while addressing nonstationary environmental challenges.

Abstract

Outdoor solar loading thermography (SLT) for cultural heritage is challenged by nonstationary environmental forcing that masks defect responses. This study advances a portable workflow integrating contour-guided geometric stabilization, multivariate fast iterative filtering (MvFIF), and principal component thermography (PCT). The framework was validated on a thermally thin canvas and a thermally thick book across distinct temperate and continental climates. Benchmarked against laboratory active thermography, results indicate a regime-dependency: dynamic, broadband excitation preferentially amplifies thin-layer anomalies, while quasi-steady heating better resolves deeper features. Under these aligned regimes, passive SLT processed by the proposed cascade achieves a performance level that is competitive with, and in certain predictable scenarios complementary to, laboratory active thermography. This approach mitigates environmental variability for physics-consistent signal extraction, offering a viable solution for non-intrusive field diagnostics.

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