Chinese Buddhist Cave Temple Exhibition -Echoes of the Past uses 3D Technology

At an exhibit called Echoes of the Past : The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan at the Meadows Museum at SMU, visitors can experience ancient caves through 3D technology. The centerpiece of the exhibit, this 3-D digital reconstruction of the South Cave in Xiangtangshan, China, combines technology with the skills of art history sleuths to recreate a Buddhist temple cave in its entire splendor. Missing items from the cave appear in yellow.

The exhibition, which runs September 11, 2011, through January 8, 2012, uses "hundreds of overlapping scans" to create a life-sized, virtual cave. Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan is organized by the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. SMU’s Meadows Museum will use 3-D technology to virtually restore a majestic sixth-century Chinese Buddhist cave temple for upcoming exhibitions.

Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan will include a video immersion into one of the largest stone temples carved into the mountains of northern China. The exhibit also includes ancient sculptural masterpieces from the caves. An additional 100 items from the caves, now in institutions and collections worldwide, have been digitally captured with hundreds of overlapping scans to create the life-sized virtual cave that is the centerpiece of the exhibit. Additional support for the Meadows Museum's presentation is generously provided by The Meadows Foundation. The exhibition is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.