Critical Analysis about the Radiation Direction in the Formation of the Shroud of Turin Image

The recent studies on the image of the Turin Shroud (TS) lead to think it could have been formed through a not well identified mechanism of energy radiation. In order to remove some lacunas about this imaging process, a reverse engineering method has been applied. In particular the present work has simulated the image formation of a human face on a cloth by using an ad-hoc developed software. The results of three different directions of the radiation have been simulated, each connected with a particular hypothesis of image formation: diffusive Lambertian direction, perpendicular to the emitting surface and the vertical one. On the basis of the analysis of the different images produced, some useful comments both about the kind of radiation and the cloth wrapping conditions have been obtained. The effect of image distortion of a cloth wrapped around a face has been discussed also proposing the most probable law of radiation attenuation with distance. None of the three hypothesis is able to produce an image comparable with that impressed on the TS thus suggesting that this image is due to a directional but more complex radiation whose laws are considered with corresponding boundary conditions.