Pure Land immerses visitors in the Dunhuang’s Buddhist grotto temples (China), bringing to life a painted mural on the north wall of Cave 220, depicting the paradise of the Eastern Pure Land of the Medicine Buddha.
Pure Land is presented in the Advanced Visualisation and Interaction Environment (AVIE3) — a large 360-degree, panoramic, stereoscopic projection theatre, which offers a true-to-life experience of being inside the cave temple and viewing its magnificent Buddhist wall paintings at 1:1 scale. Using the high-resolution photography and laser-scanned models provided by the Dunhuang Academy, Pure Land constitutes an immersive virtual facsimile that reframes and reconstitutes the extraordinary wealth of the paintings and sculptures found in the Dunhuang caves. The datasets of Cave 220, which comprise its richly narrative murals, become the subject for innovation in heritage interpretation by enhancing the cave’s architectural and photographic representations with animation, 3D modelling, pictorial recolouring, digital enlargement and a rich sound design.
