Japan Firms Working on Digital Cultural Assets

Tokyo, July 18 (Jiji Press)--Japanese companies including major printing companies are working on projects to create digital copies of cultural assets such as paintings, Buddha sculptures and pottery, using their imaging technology and image processing expertise. 

Such digital copies are increasingly used in art and other museums to provide new ways of viewing cultural assets.

On July 3, Toppan Inc. opened the "Koishikawa Xross" digital museum at its main office building in Tokyo. It features a 5-meter-high, 20-meter-wide screen on which the Zao Gongen statue, the principal object of worship at Kinpusenji Temple in Nara Prefecture, western Japan, is reproduced. It also has a section where visitors can rotate and zoom in on an image of a "shachihoko" decoration from the former Edo Castle in Tokyo.

Toppan has produced more than 60 virtual reality images since launching its digital cultural assets project in 1997. The new museum is aimed at showcasing its technology, and Toppan President Masanori Saito said it offers "new experiential values," such as the ability to see sides of cultural assets that are not normally visible.

Meanwhile, Dai Nippon Printing Co. has developed the "Midokoro viewer" system, which displays 3D images of cultural assets on a touch screen, along with descriptive text.

The company has created digital data of artifacts unearthed from the Isedotai ruins in Akita Prefecture, northeastern Japan, and of artworks stored at the French National Library. The digital data "allow cultural assets to be shown to people in a new form while being safely preserved," a company official said.

Camera maker Canon Inc. is involved in a project to print images of artworks on "washi" Japanese paper and donate them. The company has technology to reproduce the authentic texture of works after taking images of tiny parts of the works.

As part of the project, Canon donated a copy of the Wind God and Thunder God Screens, a national treasure, to Kennninji Temple in the western city of Kyoto in 2021.

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