Technology aids cultural promotion in SND

The Suzhou Museum West Branch located on Changjiang Road in Suzhou New District, East China's Jiangsu province, has become a popular scenic spot during the past seven-day National Day holiday.

The museum, along with Su Embroidery and the Suzhou Chinese Orchestra, has become one of three cultural treasures of SND.

The district has also presented Lynn, a virtual character dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, to help with cultural protection. Lynn, 20, was the first digital character in Jiangsu used for cultural promotion. She debuted at the Shushan Pear Blossom Culture and Tourism Festival in April, when the much-anticipated event had to go online due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

Yao Jianping, a professional Su Embroiderer, also praised SND's dedication to promoting culture in a digital manner.

On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the 55-year-old artist "landed" on the Moon to deliver a unique livestream show on her Suzhou embroidery works. The 3-hour live show was watched by nearly 10,000 people and more than 50 embroidery works were sold online.

Her successful moon fall was not made by a professional spacecraft but merely a computer, a camera, and green screen.

The technical team from VSO Cloud, a SND-based high-tech company, helped Yao with the livestream.

The show has taken advantage of 3D modeling to build a lunar surface involving technologies such as real light-and-shadow simulation, image matting, 5G plus real-time cloud rendering, and real-time camera movement.

Yao said she was greatly encouraged by the show's integration of handicrafts and technology: "We will continue to explore and let more people know the value of Suzhou embroidery in modern times."

By implementing a three-year plan on the culture and tourism industry, SND has set specific goals on digital culture, arts and crafts, and culture and tourism integration. It will strive to double the value of the cultural industry by allocating more culture and tourism resources, cultivating industrial entities, digitizing the industry, seeking integrated development, and rebranding the industry.

Statistics show that as of August, SND had 112 cultural enterprises above a designated size, three more than at the end of 2021. The revenue of such enterprises reached 16.93 billion yuan ($2.34 billion) in the first half of this year, growing 2.3 percent year on year.