Immersive cultural heritage digital documentation and information service for historical figure metaverse: a case of Zhu Xi, Song Dynasty, China

Abstract

Cultural heritage is closely linked with individual historical figures, who become a key focus for cultural tourism. Confucianism laid the foundation for much of Chinese civilization, and Confucius and Mencius have been studied extensively and have been influential in many parts of the world. Zhu Xi, the founder and master of Neo-Confucianism (an important part of the Mount Wuyi world cultural heritage), has received less research attention. With the big bang of the metaverse, research on the immersive cultural heritage digital documentation and information service for historical figures has become a new perspective. This paper presents a metaverse-based digital documentation framework for historical figures. This framework addresses the digitization of multimodal data for cultural heritage and adapts to the needs of metaverse presentations. For cultural research and cultural preservation, the paper has explored a combined contactless virtual and real cultural heritage experience system. For tourists, we intend to develop an immersive and holistic cultural tourism information service before, during and after the tour. In particular, we have also developed the Zhu Xi metaverse system. This is a step forward in the construction of a metaverse of historical figures.