Feature: Palace Museum integrates Chinese culture, sci-tech

BEIJING, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- When visitors walk into the Palace Museum, they can see an architectural complex with many characteristics of Chinese culture. But what can't be seen is the science and technology behind it.

The Palace Museum has cooperated with social organizations and sci-tech enterprises to enhance its capacity for cultural exhibition, and communication and tourism services. It also combines traditional restoration techniques with modern science and technology to continuously improve its heritage protection capacity.

MONITORING TECHNOLOGY

The Palace Museum boasts China's largest and most complete cultural heritage protection and research team.

To meet the demands of "miniaturization, low power consumption, high precision, multi-parameter, intelligence and real-time stability" of monitoring devices, the research team has developed or integrated seven categories of 14 kinds of special monitoring devices with independent intellectual property rights (IPR).

Based on historical risk data and multi-dimensional characteristics such as building size, density, structure, material, overall space and landscape, and the number and preservation of movable cultural relics, they can study the index system of safety risk assessment of ancient buildings, and compile the guidelines for safety risk judgment and early warning systems, and comprehensive prevention and control.

For instance, researchers can study precise counting technology for high-density dynamic crowds and the ability of fire dynamic risk perception and analysis of early warning methods under the influence of different times, seasons and complex weather.

At present, based on AI, big data and cloud computing, the Palace Museum has established a complete monitoring and response system and an emergency platform for immovable cultural relics.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

Among many technological means, digitization of cultural relics is the most important preventive protection measure.

The Palace Museum has 1.86 million pieces of cultural relic information resources and 850,000 pieces/sets of cultural relics images, and has collected and produced more than 1,500 high-precision three-dimensional models of cultural relics.

The Palace Museum has also collected and produced three-dimensional models of the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe dian), the Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghe dian), the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Zhonghe dian) and the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin dian), and collected high-precision panoramic images of all open areas.

It also launched a mobile mini-program to offer better digital services for internet users. Online projects, such as "The Digital Relics Collection," "The Digital Treasure Hall" and "The Panoramic Forbidden City," have been well received by all sectors of society. These digital technologies make cultural resources "alive."