3d-sutra – Interactive Analysis Tool for a Web- Atlas of Scanned Sutra Inscriptions in China

Buddhistic stone inscriptions (8th-12th centuries) are important cultural assets of China which need to be documented, analyzed, interpreted and visualized archaeologically, art-historically and text-scientifically. On one hand such buddhistic stone inscriptions have to be conserved for future generations but on the other hand further possibilities for analyzing the data could be enabled when the inscriptions would be accessible to a larger community, for instance the understanding of the historical growth of Buddhism in China could In this article we show innovative techniques for the documentation of stone inscriptions located in the province of Sichuan southwest of china. The tasks to be performed comprise capturing of stone inscriptions by using high precision measuring techniques to generate copies of the original inscriptions and the processing of the data enabling the improvement of the legibility of characters and thus supporting the interpretation of the inscriptions. We show the concept and features of the image processing applied on the captured inscription. In order to present the outcome to a large community and to allow individual interpretations, the results of the stone inscription reconstruction, the interpretation and additional 2D / 3D maps are published within an interactive web platform.