Digital veteran offers high def ideas to Palace Museum

Auspicious Symbols in the Forbidden City, an Apple app designed by Fei Jun and his team for the Palace Museum in 2013.

"Museums should take more responsibilities to educate the public today rather than quietly protect cultural relics," says he.

His Beijing-based private company specializes in digital design.

Virtual museums became a pathfinder for Fei and his team in the backdrop of major cultural institutions like the Palace Museum demanding that their guests be given the best of technological assistance in understanding the country's history and culture.

The Palace Museum plans to open its digital exhibition hall later this year, and Moujiti has also joined the project. Visitors will have opportunities to experience different circumstances in the virtual space, including mimics of palaces that are closed to the public. The surroundings will change according to spectators' action, which may feel more like a motion sense game.

Nevertheless, Fei says that it's hard for today's domestic museums to catch up with their premier overseas counterparts within a short time in terms of traditional exhibition display design. "But the new trend of world museums using hi-tech approaches still lacks the perfect example. China's chances to lead have come."

A confident Fei expects an ideal model to combine online and offline channels.

Their newest software design, which is planned for market release later this year, uses interactive transparent screens to replace the glass of museum display cabinets. Though similar technology has been shown on some IT expositions, Fei says has yet to come across any museum using it.

"Traditional displays only offer cultural relics, and a virtual exhibition or an app will merely provide digital images of the relics," he says.