Securing pictures and paintings
By far the highest security expenditure in the museum is for the protection of pictures and paintings. This can range from the protection of individual paintings to the protection of gallery walls. If one considers the insurance values of paintings and relates them to the freely accessible presentation of the objects, one understands that additional safeguards are necessary. Depending on the presentation of the objects, different securing methods have proven to be effective.
Large walls with several paintings can be easily secured with laser scanners. The HD-LSS25 laser scanner has a maximum detection range of 25 meters. Smaller laser scanners such as the HD-LSS4 have a range of 4 meters. The detection range can be individually limited for all laser scanners. If the museum is a building with listed ceilings, an HD-PSV vertical platform laser scanner can be mounted on the floor. Here, the detection range is 5.5 m. If there are energy or light rails near the exhibition walls, it is recommended to use the HD-PR laser scanner. This is simply hung in the light rail.
In addition to the laser scanners, the HDF-HANG sensor module has been developed to secure paintings to gallery rails; it detects when the holding rope is cut or the painting is lifted. A highlight is the optical image sensor HDF-OPTICAL. The small alarm sensor is attached to the exhibition wall behind the painting. It measures the position of the painting with a very weak IR signal. If the position of the painting changes, an alarm is triggered immediately. This technology is recommended for individual protection as well as for the protection of a larger quantity of objects. In contrast to laser scanners, however, the HDF-OPTICAL and HDF-HANG alarm modules do not detect the attack until the image is touched. In the case of a protection with laser scanners, this "recognition" can take place already with distance before. In a few cases, single paintings are also secured with the capacitive sensor HDF-TOUCH. Here, too, it is possible to trigger the alarm before touching.