The Shroud of Turin enters the age of technology on Good Friday, March 29, 2013, with its own version 2.0, in the form of an app for iPad and iPhone on the Apple Store. The first official app for the Shroud is timed to coincide with a televised viewing on Rai Uno, that will take place the day before Easter.
The "Shroud 2.0" app is designed and produced by the Novara-based company Haltadefinizione, with authorization of the Turin Archdiocese and in collaboration with the Diocesan Commission for the Holy Shroud and the Holy Shroud Museum. This app allows users to explore the Shroud in detail, in a high definition photograph that shows features that are almost invisible to the naked eye, not possible in other viewings.
This is made possible by the ultra-high definition image of the Shroud made by Haltadefinizione in 2008. Haltadefinizione has also made photographs of great works of art, such as The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci and the most famous paintings by Botticelli.
The digitalization process combines 1649 separate shots into one single image of 12 billion pixels, in a 72-Gigabyte file (which is equivalent to the storage on 16 DVDs).
The app is an interactive and dynamic look at the Shroud through a virtual tour along four different pathways: the story of the Gospels, elements of the cloth, elements of the figure, and scientific aspects. It is currently available in Italian, Spanish, English and Portuguese.
For the first time in history the most detailed image of the Shroud ever achieved is available to the world, thanks to a streaming display. This allows the user to magnify details, even in the photo-negative version, from any location, at any time. Every detail of the cloth can be magnified and viewed in a way never before possible.
The highest resolution display of the image will be available in the paid version of the app, priced at 3.59 euros but free version still offers a powerful vision of the Shroud along with references to the Gospel stories that it witnesses.
The application also includes several data sheets about the details of the image, the scientific investigations, and the historical events relevant to the Shroud, which can directly be accessed at any time. The data sheets are enriched with precious archive and documentation images that can be magnified on the screen, and that deal with the main topics: The Holy Shroud, time line, the cloth, forensic analysis, hematology, chemistry, botanics, carbon 14, mathematics, IT, photography and preservation.
