Safeguarding the cultural landscape
China DailyA heavenly king stone carving at the Pilu Cave in Anyue county, Ziyang, Sichuan, from the Song Dynasty. For example, Feng Wei, a computer science professor at Tianjin University, introduced the application of artificial intelligence in inspecting minor changes in cave temples, a significant step in preventive conservation. Feng and his team then studied the timely detection of minor changes in cave temples and invented an AI-empowered method to accomplish this task, which can also be used for other types of cultural relics. But it is not easy to keep the two conditions unchanged since "minor changes in each one can lead to a big difference in images", says Feng. "This has provided scientific data to support people's decisions in creating a balance between developing tourism and protecting the cave temples," says Feng.