Recording, Preservation, and Exhibition of Objects and Events: An Approach to Digital Museums of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The preservation and management of cultural heritage, while making it available for everyone to appreciate and passing it on to future generations is a formidable challenge. Digital museums, which use digital technologies to measure, record, preserve, and exhibit tangible and intangible cultural assets, have attracted increasing attention in the last two decades. By applying digital information technologies such as laser-scanning, computer graphics, geographic information systems, high-realistic sound filed recording, and virtual reality, digital museums enable the general public to appreciate the cultural heritage of both objects and events without the restraints of time and space. This paper briefly introduces the basic concepts, development status, technical requirements, and future prospects of digital museums. We also introduce our approach to the next-generation digital museum with two of our studies: the transparent visualization of laser-scanned 3D cultural heritages in Japan, and a virtual reproduction of the Yamahoko Parade of the Gion Festival.