A research project on high-fidelity mural restoration, pairing mask-aware local texture modeling with long-range structural reasoning.
Read the paperAncient murals rarely fail in just one way. Fine cracks coexist with large areas of peeling; surviving pigment must remain untouched even as lost structure is reconstructed. HMAT treats these as one connected restoration problem.
Environmental exposure, material aging, biological decay, and human activity leave murals with mixed damage at very different scales. Methods built for ordinary photographs often miss the distinct line work, palette, and historical significance of mural imagery.
A useful restoration must infer broad, coherent forms across large losses while keeping the texture of surviving paint sharp. It must also preserve every authentic pixel outside the damaged mask instead of shifting color or inventing detail around it.
Mask-Aware Dynamic Filtering changes the local kernel according to nearby damage, limiting contamination from zero-filled holes and retaining fine boundary detail.
A Transformer bottleneck borrows context from valid mural regions so lines, figures, and composition can continue across wide missing areas.
Mask-conditioned style fusion combines image semantics, latent variation, and mask geometry. Thin cracks and large losses therefore receive different synthesis strategies.
HMAT was tested on DHMural and a Nine-Colored Deer dataset using identical fixed masks for every method. Moderate masks cover 20–30% of the image; severe masks cover 40–50%.
Nine-Colored Deer · severe mask · best reported result across all four metrics in the controlled comparison.
The HMAT web interface turns the restoration workflow into a guided visual sequence. Visitors can upload a damaged mural or open a sample, compare HMAT with other restoration approaches, inspect image-quality metrics, and save outputs for closer review.
The interface keeps the original image, mask, model results, and evaluation measures in view together—useful for explaining what the model changes, and just as importantly, what it leaves untouched.
Tool website · link forthcoming
Destruction, Neglect, and Preservation of Murals in North China—a research-based documentary on material culture and memory in rural China.
Travel notes, images, and reflections from field research are being prepared.
ForthcomingInterviews with residents, caretakers, and local knowledge holders will appear here.
ForthcomingA recorded conversation on heritage, memory, and preservation is in development.
ForthcomingLow-cost digital tools can help communities document overlooked heritage before it disappears.
Heritage protection is often discussed through major monuments and well-funded institutions. Yet village temples, local murals, and community-held memory can disappear with far less notice.
This commentary argues for responsible digital documentation that is affordable enough to use outside major conservation centers. Photography, accessible AI workflows, and shared records can make threatened places visible while there is still time to act.
The aim is not to replace conservators or to present generated imagery as historical fact. It is to give communities practical ways to record condition, preserve context, and bring overlooked heritage into public and policy conversations.
A youth-led case for bringing accessible digital tools, local knowledge, and cultural memory into international conversations.
At a 2026 UN ECOSOC Youth Forum side event, Qianhao Han launched New Light, Old Heritage, a youth-led initiative using AI, accessible digital tools, and cross-border collaboration to help communities document and protect overlooked heritage.
NLOH brings the “new light” of technology and youth creativity to heritage that sits beyond the reach of major institutions. Its first planned tool translates HMAT into a community-friendly workflow: photograph a damaged mural, upload the images, receive restoration suggestions that preserve authentic pixels, and contribute the record to a shared platform.
Qianhao attended the Forum in New York and joined its Ministerial Breakfast as the only Canadian high school delegate, bringing a student perspective to an international discussion of meaningful youth participation.
More than 150 ministers, officials, youth delegates, young leaders, and civil-society representatives met in a world-café format to discuss how institutions can move beyond consultation and give young people sustained roles in decision-making.
Read the UN Youth Office article ↗
Sharing an appreciation for history, artworks, and cultural heritage through workshops, museum visits, and hands-on discovery.
Bishop Strachan School · September 2024–present
We introduce artworks and museums through educational workshops, organize local museum visits, and connect students with the history around them.
A hands-on history hunt invited students into the BSS archives to investigate photographs, uniforms, maps, portraits, and other objects from the school’s past.
The hunt returned with new teams and clues, again transforming school history into a collaborative challenge built around close looking.
A club visit to the Royal Ontario Museum explored Chinese murals, ritual bronzes, architectural carvings, coins, and Canadian painting through student-led conversation.
