Meeting looks at technology to boost heritage conservation

The International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Conservation by Digitization 2024 was held in Beijing.

Themed "Re-shape: Digital Heritage Driven by Technological Innovation", the seventh symposium, from Tuesday to Friday, focused on new technology and models and featured sessions on themes, such as historical towns, artificial intelligence, digitization for grottoes, archaeological sites and an international communication platform for the archaeological site of Sanxingdui.

Over 300 representatives of more than 200 universities, institutions and enterprises from 20 countries and regions attended the symposium which was jointly organized by Tsinghua University, Beijing's Haidian district government, and CIPA HD.

CIPA HD was founded in 1968 as the Comite International de la Photogrammetrie Architecturale (International Committee of Architectural Photogrammetry). Its aims are to promote architectural photogrammetry, to contribute to its technical development, and to ensure contacts between photogrammetrists and those who commission or use photogrammetric surveys of buildings in architecture. It hopes to conserve and document cultural heritage in all possible forms and its original name was changed to CIPA Heritage Documentation.

The symposium aimed to promote high-quality development in cultural heritage conservation through technological innovation, international cooperation and cultural exchanges. Over 100 reports and case studies in diversified fields including artificial intelligence, information technology, and 3D modeling were presented on the symposium.

Greece, Canada, South Korea and Italy hosted panels presenting the development of conservation and digital technology utilization for cultural heritage of each country.

During the symposium, a signing ceremony was held for a China-Greece joint digital heritage laboratory initiated by organizations on cultural heritage of both countries. The laboratory will bring together expert resources in cultural heritage, information technology, art design, and media communication to build a platform for collaboration and exchange, establishing an academic community of digitization of cultural heritage and working on talent training, collaborative research and technological breakthroughs.

A newly launched online international communication platform for Sanxingdui, was unveiled on the symposium. Through visiting an online exhibition people from all over the world can reach details of the artifacts of Sanxingdui.

The International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Conservation by Digitization was established in 2010 and aims at showing global advancements in the digitization of cultural heritage.