Through magic of pixels, history gets a second life

Walking around a digital exhibit hall in Yongle Palace in Yuncheng, Shanxi province, it is difficult not to be amazed and inspired by 3D printing, digital murals, augmented reality recognition and other exhibition projects. All this is thanks to the great effort that has been put into digitally preserving the Yongle Palace murals.

Yongle Palace (palace of eternal joy), one of the three biggest Taoist temples in China, is the largest of all Taoist temples remaining from the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) and was among the first national key cultural relics protection items.

In 2016 experts found that its murals were deteriorating and that the wooden components of the four halls were deformed and cracked, and a rescue operation then began.