Korea National University of Cultural Heritage

The Chinese ink spreading characteristics of traditional Korean paper, known as "Balmuk," are crucial for evaluating the paper quality.In this study, a new dynamic Chinese ink spreading evaluation method was developed, which complements the existing static Chinese ink spreading method, i.e., the roundness method.Basis weight and thickness considerably influenced the static Chinese ink spreading characteristics of traditional Korean paper.Roundness, rather than the spreading area, was a suitable evaluation parameter, regardless of the sheet-forming method employed.Correlation analysis between the static Chinese ink spreading area and roundness for Ssangbal-choji Hanji showed a significant relationship (p-value 0.01), whereas those for Oebal-choji Hanji did not exhibit a significant correlation.The apparent density considerably impacted the dynamic Chinese ink spreading characteristics.Moreover, these characteristics could be appropriately evaluated along the laid direction and chain direction for Oebal-choji Hanji and Ssangbal-choji Hanji, respectively.Correlation analysis between the dynamic Chinese ink spreading area and length showed a significant relationship, with p-value 0.01, regardless of the sheet-forming method employed.Correlation analysis between static and dynamic Chinese ink spreading showed significant correlations between static ink spreading area and both dynamic ink spreading area and length (p-value 0.01), regardless of the sheetforming method employed.These findings indicated that the static ink spreading area and either the dynamic ink spreading area or length were suitable for comparing the two Chinese ink spreading characteristics.K-means cluster analysis of these characteristics indicated that the optimal number of clusters was two for Oebal-choji Hanji and three for Ssangbal-choji Hanji.Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the basis weight and apparent density considerably impacted the ink spreading characteristics for Oebal-choji

Abstract. This study presents the development of a virtual museum utilizing 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS), a novel real-time rendering technique, and evaluates its experiential quality and effectiveness in comparison with a conventional 360-degree panoramic image (360° image)–based system. While 360° images offer advantages such as high visual clarity and ease of implementation, they are inherently limited in terms of user mobility and interaction, which restrict their immersive potential. In contrast, 3DGS enables robust scene reconstruction even in complex exhibition environments, supporting free navigation and interaction, and is therefore considered a promising approach for immersive virtual experiences. Two systems are implemented based on identical exhibition content, and a comprehensive user evaluation is conducted incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results, measured through the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) and additional user perception metrics, indicate that the 3DGS-based system achieves statistically significant higher scores across all IPQ items. Furthermore, participants report greater satisfaction, intention to reuse, preference for widespread use, and motivation to visit. Despite minor limitations in image sharpness and text readability, users generally perceive the visual quality of the 3DGS system to be acceptable—sometimes even impressive—and show a clear preference for its interactive and participatory features. These findings suggest that, with further advancements in rendering quality and optimization, 3DGS holds strong potential as a viable alternative for future virtual museum implementations.

This study presents a prototype for visualizing artifact information, allowing museum professionals to manage and utilize it without needing computer science expertise. The proposed prototype enables users to enter and manage data pertaining to artifacts and visualize the information in various methods using the entered data. Therefore, museum professionals can use it in various practical settings, such as discovering new relationships between artifacts, deriving research and exhibition topics, and developing content. This study utilized data from approximately 270 traditional paintings and 70 painters from the Joseon Dynasty of Korea to implement the visualization. Users can identify the association between the works using the patterns depicted in the paintings and their implied meanings based on the network graphs. The region of activity, period of activity, and frequency of pattern usage can be visualized by artists by combining maps, timelines, and word clouds, depending on the characteristics of the data. The developed prototype was compared with Gephi and Neo4j, commercial network graph generation tools, to determine whether it had sufficient functions for visualizing artifact information. The main process of data visualization was divided into data management, data visualization, and data exploration, while the necessary details for each step were determined as the criteria of the comparative analysis. They were compared after entering the same data into each software. The comparative evaluation was conducted in the process of creating and exploring network graphs.

Abstract The article discusses the evolution of Korea’s cultural heritage protection policies, with a particular focus on intangible cultural heritage, spanning from the inception of the Cultural Property Protection Act in 1962 to the recent enactment of the Framework Act on National Heritage in 2023. The shift towards a more comprehensive legal framework aims to align Korea’s standards with international norms, particularly those set forth by UNESCO’s cultural heritage safeguarding policies. The article highlights the challenges stemming from conflicts between domestic laws and UNESCO conventions, as well as the subsequent revisions undertaken by the Cultural Heritage Administration to address these issues. The article underscores the challenges associated with safeguarding community-based intangible cultural heritage. It proposes assigning a central role to expert committees in safeguarding intangible heritage and advocates for reducing direct government intervention in favour of exploring novel avenues for indirect support.

Background and objective: Health diagnosis is essential for large, old trees that are designated and protected by the Act on the Preservation and Utilization of Natural Heritage and the Forest Protection Act. However, in the field, the overall health of trees is diagnosed by measuring the photosynthetic efficiency (PE) of some leaves. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the possibility of using hyper-spectral technology to replace the PE measurement as an approach for diagnosing the health of Zelkova serrata (Thunb.) Makino, which has a high rate of natural monument designation among South Korea’s natural heritage.Methods: The PE and hyper-spectral values were acquired from Zelkova leaves, and a Monte Carlo simulation was performed based on the spectral bands used to calculate vegetation indices (VI) in previous studies to select bands that have a high correlation with the PE. The explanatory power of these values on tree health was verified through a regression analysis of the VI and PE calculated from the selected bands, and the results of the study are as follows.Results: First, a variance analysis of the PE and VI of leaves found that there were differences depending on direction, and that the hyper-spectral values of leaves collected from the west were the most effective in measuring tree health. Second, it was found that it was effective to use 520 and 570 nm in the green region, 684 nm in the red region, 860 and 890 nm in the NIR region, 500 nm in the carotenoid region, and 531 nm in the xanthophyll region to derive the VI that replace PE metrics from the hyper-spectral values of leaves collected from the west. Third, PRI showed a very high effect with an explanatory power of 73.2% for the maximum quantum yield (Fv/Fm) regression equation. In other words, it was found that PRI can be used as an index derived from hyperspectral values to diagnose and record the healthy parts of Zelkova tree.Conclusion: By expanding the scope of this study to include Pinus densiflora and Ginkgo biloba, it is expected that if the utility and field applicability of this approach for diagnosing the health of large old trees are generally verified, it can be used for regular surveys of such trees designated as natural monuments in the future. Furthermore, it is expected that it can be expanded to diagnose park trees, street trees and the like, in addition to large, old trees.

Conventional studies on the satisfaction of museum visitors focus on collecting information through surveys to provide a one-way service to visitors, and thus it is impossible to obtain feedback on the real-time satisfaction of visitors who are experiencing the museum exhibition program. In addition, museum practitioners lack research on automated ways to evaluate a produced content program's lifecycle and its appropriateness. To overcome these problems, we propose a novel multi-convolutional neural network, called VimoNet, which is able to recognize visitors emotions automatically in real-time based on their facial expressions and body gestures. Furthermore, we design a user preference model of content and a framework to obtain feedback on content improvement for providing personalized digital cultural heritage content to visitors. Specifically, we define seven emotions of visitors and build a dataset of visitor facial expressions and gestures with respect to the emotions. Using the dataset, we proceed with feature fusion of face and gesture images trained on the DenseNet-201 and VGG-16 models for generating a combined emotion recognition model. From the results of the experiment, VimoNet achieved a classification accuracy of 84.10%, providing 7.60% and 14.31% improvement, respectively, over a single face and body gesture-based method of emotion classification performance. It is thus possible to automatically capture the emotions of museum visitors via VimoNet, and we confirm its feasibility through a case study with respect to digital content of cultural heritage.

“Gyuhap Chongseo”, compiled by Yi Bingheogak in 1809, is an encyclopedia of household management by a Joseon dynasty noblewoman. This study explores the use of fragrances in agriculture, particularly in the “Sangarak” section. It reveals how fragrances were employed for rituals, medicine, insect repellent, and deodorization. Yi Bingheogak’s work reflects the practical application of traditional knowledge, emphasizing women’s active roles in managing household and agricultural practices.

The ancient Goguryeo tombs are spread throughout North Korea and China. The Goguryeo Kingdom was one of the most powerful Korean kingdoms that occupied half of Northeast China and the Korea n Peninsula from the 3rd century BC to the 7th century AD. In 2004, a t the 28<sup>th</sup> session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Suzhou, China, 63 of these tombs were designated as World Heritage Sites. Previously, international organizations such as UNESCO, ICCROM, and ICOMOS provided technical and expert training support for the conservation and management of such tombs. In 1998, at the request of North Korea, a series of investigations and conservation activities began on the tomb murals, and in 2000, international experts began investigating the scientific preservation status of the Yaksu‑ri tomb murals with the South Korean government’s assistance of $100,000 provided to UNESCO. From July 19<sup>th</sup> to 30<sup>th</sup>, 2005, the Goguryeo Relics North‑South Korea Joint Investigation Team, consisting of members of the Goguryeo Research Foundation in South Korea and the North Korean Academy of Social Sciences and Cultural Conservation Guidance, conducted its first joint investigation of the ruins since the two countries were divided. The 2006 Inter‑Korean Joint Goguryeo Mural Tomb Preservation Survey was the first time that South Korean conservation experts participated in scientifically investigating the preservation status and environment of mural tombs and mural pigment analysis. This was to secure comprehensive data on eight tombs. In 2007, additional support for the installation of the necessary measurement equipment was provided to continuously monitor the environments of the ancient tombs. Subsequently, no additional inter‑Korean joint investigation and research has been conducted. To provide scientific information on the distribution of microorganisms in the mural paintings of the tombs and to help establish a future joint preservation plan this study summarizes and reports on the “examination of a biological and environmental survey of the Goguryeo tomb mural paintings” from the results of the 2006 Inter-Korean Joint Goguryeo Mural Conservation Survey Report, jointly published by the Inter-Korean Historians Association and the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage, which has not previously been presented at academic conferences.

This aimed to species identification and tree-ring dating of wooden elements used in the Seongjeonggak of Changduk-palace, Seoul, Korea. All 50 wooden elements were confirmed to be <i>Pinus</i> subgenus (Hard pines). Increment cores of the wooden elements were collected using a drill for tree-ring dating, and mutual compatibility of dendrochronologies were constructed using statistical and graph comparison methods. As a result of tree ring dating, The chronologies of 30 Pinus subgenus wooden elements were matched to each other and to the standard chronologies. In addition, some wooden elements had bark revealing the following logging dates: early spring 1774 – early spring 1777. The obtained felling date of the 1770s were found to be consistent with those in the construction and repair records of the Ilseongnok (Records of daily reflections) and Seungjeongwon’ diary (The daily records of royal secretariat of Joseon dynasty). However, the obtained outermost dates of the 1881 were not consistent with those in the construction and repair records. Therefore, additional confirmation of repairs that were not included in the records was possible using tree-ring dating.

This study conducted various surveys on Catholic Movable Cultural Heritage to understand the perception of them, and to investigate and analyze their types, characteristics, and conservation management status. It was determined that the risk of damage and loss is high due to the management status of practitioners who are non-professionals in the field of cultural heritage and the existing guidelines that are not effective. In addition, we identified the uniformity of materials and the period characteristics of the modern era, as most of the items are liturgical items made according to the norms. In consideration of this, we proposed a new classification system that lists the subcatagory’s items and materials corresponding to each item, a management card with improved nomenclature and detailed information fields, and concrete and tangible instructions to make it easier for non-professional practitioners to access. As the number of Catholic Movable Cultural Heritage is expected to increase in the future, the need for conservation and management and related research is expected to be actively conducted, and this study is expected to increase the interest in Catholic Movable Cultural Heritage and serve as a basis for further research.