When science meets heritage

Vanita Srivastava

Imagine recreating the splendour of a heritage site, transporting back to medieval times, indulge in ’s rich architectural legacy and unfolding a visual reflection of the social life of a bygone era – through digital technologies.

This is what the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH), an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology has strived to do when it started the IDH project in 2011. As the five-year-project that fleshed out the architectural glory of , a medieval grand capital of , located in the border town of Karnataka and , comes to an end next month, it leaves behind an imprint and an ample scope for the researchers to broaden its ambit to other such sites.

DST helps to recreate Hampi's glory

Hampi, an ideal canvas

The IDH is a unique initiative supporting collaborative projects between researchers in the areas of advanced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and humanities for the digital documentation of our heritage. It was conceived with the idea of drawing together a pool of social scientists and technologists to work towards the digital reconstruction, documentation and interpretation of heritage using synergy digital approaches.

The World Heritage Site of Hampi in Karnataka, the capital of Vijayanagara Empire from the mid 14th to mid 16th century seemed to provide an ideal canvas as it contains palaces, forts, army bastians, temples and other monuments in a 20 sq km area. Hampi was an ideal location for this novel experiment because it is dotted with a rich, diverse and dazzling legacy of architectural ruins, temples, art and living traditions. The well known artistic and architectural splendours have provided a fertile ground for the exercise ranging from the Narasimha colossus, the luminescent murals of Lepakshi, the Virupaksha temple, the Vitthala temple complex.

Also studied are the portable Vijayanagra bronzes used as utsav murti or processional images and portrait sculpture and related digital interfaces in the study of their iconometry and modelling. The development of wikis related to the vibrant living crafts such as painting and carpentry for making chariots has also been attempted. The living traditions such as the Dussera tradition and related crafts and the legacy of Girija Kalyanam ritual concerning the marriage of Siva and Parvati are also documented and interpreted from digital approaches.

Cross-fertilization of ideas

“The basic goal of the project is to bring the power of ICT, a fine synergy of heritage with matured information communication technologies and development of technology tools to help preserve, use and experience India’s vast heritage in digital form, says Dr K R Murali Mohan, project in- charge at DST

Through collaboration between the culture and the technology communities we have helped identify the nature and form of heritage that is most suitable for digital capture, storage and usage, he said.

Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, of IIT Madras who is the chairman of the Project Advisory & Monitoring Committee feels: “Indian heritage is very rich. We need to not just preserve it, but enrich it and make it come alive. Digital Technologies will make this possible. Hampi was an example. We now need to multiply it. The best way is to arm hundreds of young students with tools and techniques and let their imagination and energy do the rest. In the meanwhile technologists can continue to enrich the tools.”

In addition to these technical and technological goals, the project has a few key societal goals. It has brought together diverse groups from the technical and cultural communities to work together and has led to exciting and productive cross fertilization of ideas leading to innovative research and knowledge development.

A total 22 academic and research institutes participated in the IDH scheme under the guidance of Prof Ashok Jhujhunwala, IIT Madras, Chennai, Prof Santanu Chaudhury, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, Prof Ranganathan, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.

The project has created a set of technologies and tools that can be used for similar efforts and has established a close collaboration at national and international agencies.

The goals of the IDH are broad—not specific to any one monument or any one type of art, architecture or cultural heritage.

“While digital technologies are reaching a point of maturity where we can even consider applying them to such a vast problem, they are not ready for casual use or use at scale in a production setting. They are still primarily research tools and technologies. The project provided opportunities for technology researchers to invent and innovate new technologies, brought together diverse groups of experts and researchers from the technology and culture side for the first time,” Dr. Mohan said.

The project is unique as it draws together researchers from technology and humanities. This is perhaps the first such effort in India and probably in the World; it is a major multi- disciplinary, multi-institutional project. Twelve technology team drawn from some of the finest institutions and 10 culture and heritage researchers have come together to create new ways of analysing and preserving heritage in digital domain.

Digital beauty

As an outcome of the IDH Scheme, a total of 37 generic technologies, 7 prototypes and scaled models have been developed and demonstrated. These technologies generic in nature and thus can be applied on any monuments.

Exquisite mural paintings of Lepakshi and Hampi have been digitally captured in high resolution and analysed. The work has to led to scholarly research on the database among art historians on the dating of the Hampi mural. Vijayanagara sculpture and bronzes of the 15th - 16th century represent a rich and distinctive tradition.

A walk through the Vittala temple complex has been created through documentation and analysis. Besides the acoustic analysis of the musical pillars at Hampi, focus has been on digital reconstruction of the heritage site . Super resolution techniques have been developed to enhance the user’s experience in viewing fine details of the scene during walkthrough.

The intangible heritage of festivals, bazaar scenes and crafts are also studied and digitally documented. The historians have detailed about the Vijayadasmi tradition and there is a clear reflection that though empires have fallen, but the rituals and traditions have continued. For example, Vijayadashami tradition was part of Hampi and still continues at Mysore with almost same vigour and scale.

A mobile phone based application to help tourists know more about different sites of Hampi by just pointing its camera to it, is a significant contribution of the project.

IDH is an innovative project wherein the fusion of technology with social sciences was demonstrated to some extent. It has potential to scale upto cover entire country and monuments. The reality of virtual museums is possible. Based on web technologies people can experience historical sites, feel the monuments through augmented reality. Indirectly it will enhance tourism and digital heritage walks.