Bringing the queen mother of the west to life: Digital reconstruction and analysis of Taoist Celestial Beings Worshiping mural’s apparel

Abstract

Painted during the Yuan Dynasty, Taoist Celestial Beings Worshiping is a Taoist propaganda painting. It is one of the largest surviving ancient murals worldwide, featuring a variety of images of these beings dressed in costumes that vividly illustrate the blend of religious and artistic values in Chinese culture. To record and present the mural more intuitively and improve the study of Taoist Celestial Beings Worshiping, this article takes the example of five goddesses centered Queen Mother of the West in the mural and analyzes the styles, structures, colors, and patterns of the costumes from the perspective of costume engineering. Human models are established and the costumes at multiple levels are reconstruction by means of 3D virtual simulation technology. The display images are accompanied by QR codes, which can be scanned to view the 3D model. Finally, the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to comprehensively evaluate the reconstruction effect of clothing, and the result was “good.” The resulting digital figure can realize the “revitalization of cultural relics” and provides a new perspective for the digital exhibition of murals, which is conducive to the development of digital tourism and promotes the development of traditional culture.

Pengpeng Hu

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor)

Pengpeng Hu is currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) with The University of Manchester. His research interests include biometrics, geometric deep learning, 3D human body reconstruction, point cloud processing, and vision-based measurement. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, and Engineering and Mathematics in Medical and Life Sciences, as well as an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE and a member of the editorial board for Scientific Reports. He is also the Programme Chair for the 25th UK Workshop on Computational Intelligence (UKCI 2026) and an Area Chair for the 35th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC 2024). He is the recipient of the Emerald Literati Award for an outstanding paper in 2019.