The Newsletter 79 Spring 2018

Digitization projects at the Cultural Heritage Research Institute, Zhejiang University

Zhirong LiChangyu Diao

The team at the Cultural Heritage Research Institute of Zhejiang University embarked on a series of major digitization projects in 2010. Headed by an archaeologist and a scholar in image processing, our members come from various disciplines including computer science, archaeology, art history, and digital humanities. Our mission is to establish a high-standard, comprehensive digital database of the cultural relics in China for the purpose of conservation, research and education.

Scanned image of the east wall mural of the White Hall at Tholing Monastery, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet.
Scanned image of the east wall mural of the White Hall at Tholing Monastery, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet.

At present, the team has conducted digitization work at more than a hundred archaeological sites, museums, and cultural institutions across twenty different provinces, cities, and autonomous regions in China. Our works encompass large-scale monuments such as historic architecture and Buddhist cave temples, and museum collections ranging from textiles to paintings, calligraphy, porcelains, and statues. We aim to maintain state-of-the-art technological standards in the process of scanning, archiving, preserving, and presenting cultural objects and sites.

Digital scans of the Xumishan Cave 45 in Ningxia.
Digital scan of the Xumishan Cave 45 in Ningxia.
Digital scans of the Xumishan Cave 45 in Ningxia.
Digital scan of the Xumishan Cave 45 in Ningxia.

Recently, with the collaboration of the Yungang Academy, we have successfully printed a to-scale 3D model of the rear chamber of Yungang Cave 3. This marks a significant advance in the digital conservation and reconstruction of cultural heritage in China.

Zhirong Li (lzr5335@163.com) and Changyu Diao (diaochangyu@gmail.com) are Assistant Directors of the Cultural Heritage Research Institute, Zhejiang University.