Digital restoration and reconstruction of heritage clothing: a review

Abstract

Historical, folk, and opera costumes are part of cultural heritage, embodying the history, culture, art, and spirit of given nations. Due to aging and various damages, handed-down and unearthed historical clothing is often fragile and complex to preserve. Recently, digital methods have emerged as a meaningful way to restore and reconstruct all kinds of heritage clothing. The appearance of heritage costumes can be preserved permanently and presented to the public in a more accessible and interesting way via digitization. However, there is a lack of systematic review on this topic. To fill this gap, recent progress in digital restoration and 3D virtual reconstruction of heritage clothing is reviewed in this article. On the one hand, the methods and advantages of digitally restoring damaged archaeological costumes and fabrics, as well as damaged clothing images in archaeological murals, are summarized and emphasized. On the other hand, the digital reconstruction and virtual simulation of heritage costumes from different prototypes with known or unknown original appearances using different digital frameworks are presented and discussed. Furthermore, general steps and challenges in the digital reconstruction process, as well as future directions for digitalizing heritage clothing, are also discussed.