Scientific and technological innovation helps the high-quality development of the cultural industry

In March this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection in Hunan: "Explore the effective mechanism of cultural and technological integration, accelerate the development of new cultural formats, and form more new cultural industry growth points." ”

Cultural prosperity requires the support of science and technology. The deep integration of culture and science and technology can not only enhance the scientific and technological content of cultural products, make cultural products more innovative and attractive, but also give birth to new formats, new industries and new scenarios, and provide new momentum for the development of cultural industries. In recent years, the mainland's cultural industry has ushered in new development opportunities with the help of science and technology. "Technology empowerment and culture out of the circle" not only enriches people's spiritual life, but also profoundly changes the way of production, dissemination and consumption of culture, and promotes the high-quality development of the cultural industry.

Archaeological work uses more new technologies

The smart display cabinet comes with "constant temperature and humidity" to build a suitable display environment for cultural relics; The security situational awareness platform monitors the density of tourists, security risks, and ...... In recent years, scientific and technological innovation has fully empowered archaeological work, and computer vision, artificial intelligence and other technologies have added more "scientific and technological models" to archaeology.

Buried deep underground for more than 2,000 years, the newly unearthed terracotta warriors and horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang are basically intact. However, due to the unique coloring process, the figurines are easily affected by the rapid changes in environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, and there are fades and discolorations.

If you want to make the terracotta warriors and horses better "color", the key is to minimize the environmental impact in the process of excavation, transfer, restoration, storage and other processes of cultural relics.

"We designed a new archaeological excavation and emergency protection system for the No. 2 pit of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, which can provide the Terracotta Warriors and Horses with closed-loop protection from excavation to entering the warehouse, and retain the 'true colors' of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses to the greatest extent." According to the person in charge of the chip-related project of CETC Group, they have developed an intelligent system including an excavation module and an experimental module. Among them, the archaeological excavation cabin can cover the whole process and area of the excavation area of the colored figurines, which can be moved with the corridor and can be disassembled and assembled for multiple uses. After the figurines are unearthed, they can be protected in a timely and all-round way, supporting archaeological experts to carry out simple emergency repair and emergency protection work directly on the site, and reducing damage such as fading and discoloration.

"This system also includes environmental control modules, lighting modules, scientific instrument platforms, etc., with multiple functions such as cultural relics excavation, cultural relics protection, information collection, and cultural relics transfer." Experts said that with these "black technologies", people, soil, and cultural relics can be safely and effectively transferred and transported in the cabin during the excavation process, which improves and optimizes the workflow of cultural relics excavation and emergency protection.

The splicing of cultural relics has always been a difficult point in archaeological work. In recent years, researchers have explored the use of digital and human-machine collaborative intelligence technologies to assist in the simulation and splicing of cultural relics without interfering with the physical objects of cultural relics, so as to provide reliable suggestions for more accurate and efficient physical restoration.

Sanxingdui Museum is one of the pilots of this technology. In 2023, the large-scale Liren bronze beast unearthed in the No. 8 pit of the sacrificial area of the Sanxingdui site and the top kneeling bronze statue unearthed in the No. 3 pit before successfully "crossed the pit" and was combined into a large-scale bronze artwork again. Previously, because the two precious cultural relics were extremely fragile and more than 2 meters high, if the matching experiment was rashly carried out, it was possible to cause irreversible damage to the cultural relics.

To this end, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Tencent Digital Culture Laboratory, Tencent Platform and Content Business Group Application Research Center formed a joint team to carry out artificial intelligence calculation and analysis of the three-dimensional models of the two cultural relics, extract the geometric feature information of the contact surface between the mythical beast and the human figure, calculate the similarity of the features to obtain the matching data index of the splicing, and conduct the overall force analysis to judge the balance of the splicing combination. Through further quantitative data, the technical team verified the feasibility and reasonable splicing method of the "fit" splicing of the two artifacts.

The technical team also gives full play to the advantages of intelligent computing to assist cultural relics and archaeological experts in the analysis of cultural relics and diseases. According to the three-dimensional model of cultural relics, they used artificial intelligence algorithms to conveniently measure and calculate the crack length of cultural relics, the geometric radius data of each cross-section, the matching degree of different splicing positions, the overall attitude and stress situation, etc., which provided quantitative support for experts to analyze the deterioration of cultural relics and protect and restore cultural relics. (Reporter Liu Shiyao)

"Digitalization" of traditional culture

"Dear audience friends, it has been more than 60 years since I last took the stage. Unexpectedly, here, we met again......" With the melodious sound of the Jinghu qin, a young man "Mei Lanfang" walked to the center of the stage and told the audience.

This scene takes place in the virtual avatar laboratory of the Beijing Institute of Technology. With the help of high-fidelity real-time digital human technology, researchers have successfully reproduced the demeanor of Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang when she was young.

This is the country's first high-precision Peking Opera digital human - "Mei Lanfang Twin Digital Human", which was created by the team of Professor Weng Dongdong of Beijing Institute of Technology and the team of the Central Academy of Drama. "Allowing Peking Opera masters to reappear on the stage can better mobilize the audience's curiosity about the art of Peking Opera, and let the culture transcend time and space and carry forward." Weng Dongdong said.

How to "restore" Mei Lanfang through the speed of speech, singing, and even the reproduction of her style and charm?

"By constructing three-dimensional character digital assets, we connect all kinds of related cultural data, such as tangible costumes, cultural toys, intangible theatrical expressions, actions, costume production processes, etc." In Weng Dongdong's view, this is not only technological innovation, but also artistic creation.

Using digital means to accurately capture and reproduce Mr. Mei Lanfang's performance, Weng Dongdong's team encountered many technical problems. Through deep learning algorithms and multi-modal data analysis, they not only successfully "reconstructed" the appearance of the characters, but also simulated subtle expressions and delicate movements, allowing the "Mei Lanfang Twin Digital Human" to perfectly present the charm of traditional art on the virtual stage.

"Mei Lanfang Twin Digital Human" is not only a visual copy, but also a transmission of emotions and spirit. In order to make the digital human show the delicacy and essence of Peking Opera art in the performance, the team conducted in-depth research on Mei Lanfang's classic performance, and combined with modern digital technology, the models and bone statues were finely supplemented and improved. Weng Dongdong said: "Digital human technology provides a new way for the inheritance of traditional culture, and it is an important way to build cultural exchanges in modern society. ”

The "Mei Lanfang Twin Digital Human" project is just a microcosm of the perfect integration of modern technology and traditional culture. In recent years, with the help of modern science and technology, more and more traditional culture has become "alive" in light and shadow and "fired" among the public.

At Chengdu Phoenix Digital Art Center, the "Painting Journey in a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains - Immersive Art Exhibition in the Forbidden City" is based on the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng's "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", using holographic projection, real-time interaction and other technologies to transform static paintings into dynamic digital scrolls, creating a magical effect of "people swimming in the painting". At the Hunan Art Museum, Qi Baishi's "Residence in Ten Thousand Bamboo Mountains" transforms from a two-dimensional plane to a three-dimensional space, where real scenes such as wooden bridges and bamboo forests are integrated with birds and streams presented with digital technology...... Through virtual reality technology, the audience can experience the beautiful scenery of Qi Baishi's mountain dwelling.

Industry insiders believe that taking root in the fertile soil of traditional culture, with the help of digital "wings", using modern scientific and technological innovation and artistic language, and allowing cultural and artistic resources to "go online into the cloud" and "swipe the screen out of the circle", can not only enhance the supply capacity of high-quality digital cultural products, but also provide a new path for the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture. At the same time, in this process, it is necessary to balance the relationship between art and technology, content and form, respect the laws of artistic creation and dissemination, and let technology amplify the beauty of art and highlight the soul of culture. (Reporter Wu Yuehui)

Artificial intelligence protects ancient buildings

In April this year, the "Smart Yingxian Wooden Tower" scheme jointly developed by Lenovo Group and the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University was released. This is an extended real-world application based on artificial intelligence and spatial computing technology, through the construction of a "wooden tower twin" in the digital world, the complete structure and details of the wooden tower are restored layer by layer, and the history of the wooden tower is condensed into it, so that the wooden tower of Yingxian County can be reproduced in the digital world.

As the world's oldest and tallest existing wooden pavilion-style building, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda has stood for nearly a thousand years without falling down by virtue of its unique design, structure and construction, and has become a world-famous ancient Chinese architectural cultural heritage. At the same time, due to the gradual accumulation of damage caused by earthquakes, weather, wars and other factors in history, the task of protecting the wooden pagoda in Yingxian County has become increasingly urgent. From February 2023, Lenovo Group and the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University launched the "Smart Yingxian Wooden Tower" project to empower the protection of ancient buildings with a new generation of information technology.

The School of Architecture of Tsinghua University carried out the modeling of the wooden structure inside the wooden tower, and built a wooden tower parameter database through the study of structural parameters. At the same time, they transformed the research results into the display of the wooden tower and popular science content, and created a script for the virtual experience. Lenovo Group combines artificial intelligence, neural radiance fields and extended reality technology to provide technical support for the complete structure and details of the restored wooden tower. Mao Shijie, vice president of Lenovo Group, said that during the research and development of the project, the research team used more than 15 million basic materials, completed nearly 60,000 lines of programming, and manually rendered the model up to 4.2G.

Mao Shijie said: "In the first stage, we used drone equipment and 360-degree cameras to carry out panoramic scanning and shooting around the wooden tower, and completed the collection of thousands of image data inside and outside the wooden tower. In the second stage, we use artificial intelligence technology to analyze and process basic material data, and train intelligent perception and understanding of 3D spatial information through deep learning and neural network to build a highly simulated 3D scene. In the third stage, we use extended reality technology to seamlessly connect the generated 3D model with the real world or virtual world, and realize the flexible application and interaction of the 3D model in different scenarios through the integration and reconstruction of fragmented information. ”

In the end, the "Smart Yingxian Wooden Tower" experience application restored and reproduced the five exploration scenes of the first to fifth floors of the wooden tower, and achieved breakthroughs such as simulated tower climbing, artistic restoration, and ancient and modern integration. In the case that the scenic spot has suspended the visit to the tower, visitors can simulate the tower through virtual reality equipment to learn about the history of the wooden tower in Yingxian County.

In addition, the "Smart Yingxian Wooden Tower" project has also established a visual digital information archive to support the protection of the wooden tower in the future. In the future, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and other technologies are expected to be applied to the site investigation of ancient buildings.

Liu Chang, director of the Institute of Architectural History and Cultural Relics Conservation of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University, has long been committed to the protection of wooden towers in Yingxian County. He said: "The protection of wooden towers in Yingxian County is a systematic project. It is necessary to see not only the appearance, but also the internal 'bones', and even the distribution of the internal 'nerves' and muscles. The collection and application of large amounts of data can not only build generative AI applications, but also build bridges between different data. ”

"For ancient buildings, it involves the protection of structures, materials, and cultural information such as painted sculptures and murals. Various technologies such as surveying and mapping, exploration, structural reinforcement, and material reinforcement are used. Wang Xiaolong, vice president of Shanxi Provincial Institute of Ancient Architecture and Painted Sculpture Mural Protection, believes that technical means should serve the protection of cultural heritage, and hopes to extract more unknown information about the wooden tower in Yingxian County through more refined surveying and mapping technology in the future, including its original design, changes at different stages, and the decay of wood, so as to provide stronger support for subsequent protection. (Reporter Gu Yekai)

Source丨People's Daily