Supported by

• Capture of high resolution images of the mural panels in Lepakshi Veerabhadraswamy temple's Natya Mandapa with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera by expert photographer and award winning filmmaker Vinod Raja,Centre for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Studies (CHATS), at IIACD; stitching, editing and color correction (2011).
• IDH Murals project goes to Lepakshi Festival: On the invitation of the local community of Lepakshi and the Department of Tourism, Andhra Pradesh, IIACD's art and cultural team and technologists participated in the 2012 Lepakshi Festival where they digitized and showcased an beta version of the interactive Lepakshi temple murals archive, a short video clip on the Girija Kalyana theme and exhibited prints of the high resolution images of the Lepakshi Veerabhadraswamy temple Natya Mandapa ceiling murals captured by IIACD's expert photographer Vinod Raja. This initiative to showcase IIACD's IDH Vijayanagara murals project work funded by DST in Lepakshi to the local community was part of CHATS' Heritage and Youth (HAY) outreach programme, which seeks to foster cultural democracy for all. IIACD's exhibits at the festival were appreciated by the religious tourists, government officials, journalists, local teachers, school children and other community members. The CHATS team also documented the festival (2012).
• Design and co-creation of the Hampi Murals Interactive Digital Archive: The HAI team at CHATS, comprising of art and cultural scholars and a designer collaborated with digital technologists at IIACD in editing, watermarking and processing the the hi resolution Hampi mural images shared by the NID, Bangalore IDH team. They co-created an user friendly and interactive open source digital archive of high resolution images of the murals of the Hampi Virupaksha Rangamantapa ceiling. This archive was designed and curated by Prof Uma Chandru (Coordinator, IDH Vijayanagara Murals project). Scholarly annotations of each of the mural panels enriched with textual narratives by Vijayashree C S (Art Historian) were integrated into the open source digital archive developed by software developer Pradeepa C under the guidance of Dr. T B Dinesh (Computer Scientist) at CHATS, IIACD. A Girija Kalyana textual narrative by Balaji Srinivasan (Art and Folklore researcher) and an audio narrative by Hampi University's Prof. Chaluvaraju, summarized and transcribed into English was also integrated into this archive. Users can browse, enlarge and take a closer look at the detailing in the panels, view expert annotations, read and listen to the rich narratives pertaining to each of the mural panels and sub panels, which are uniquely organized in registers (2014).
• IIACD's HAI team led by Dr. Vijaya Chandru (Project PI) showcased a demo video of the user friendly Hampi Murals Interactive Digital Archive at the Digital Hampi Workshop and Exhibition in Delhi. The demo received positive feedback from the dignitaries, scholars, journalists and other visitors (November 2014).
• Revisiting Hampi and Lepakshi Murals: This short film scripted by Balaji Srinivasan and Gandhi B with inputs from Prof Uma Chandru, and co-created by the HAI team at CHATS, IIACD compares the narrative mural paintings in Hampi and Lepakshi in terms of their stylistic differences and themes. It also touches upon the debate surrounding the dating of the Hampi murals in comparison with the 16th century paintings of Lepakshi. The film is based on the research of prior scholars as well as the research of the HAI art and cultural researchers at IIACD between 2011 and 2014. It ends with a painful reminder of the loss of paintings at Hollalagundi Siddeshwara temple and other important sites. It also emphasizes the need to digitally document and preserve the tangible and intangible aspects of India's mural heritage. Showcased at the Digital Hampi Workshop and Exhibition in Delhi in November 2014, the film was well received by the large audience it attracted (2014).
• Girija Kalyana: Ontology Based Narratives - a multi-institutional collaborative demo: In this collaborative demo exhibited at the Digital Hampi Workshop and Exhibition in November 2014 at India Habitat Centre, Delhi, Prof Uma V Chandru (Coordinator, IDH Murals Project, IIACD) collaborated with Prof Chaluvaraju of Hampi University, Dr Anupama Mallik and other technologists at IIT-Delhi's Multi-media laboratory in mapping the ontology. IIACD's HAI team at CHATS provided images of Lepakshi and Hampi murals, sculpture, rich narratives and other annotated content related to the Girija Kalyana (GK) theme, with a focus on the mural panels in Hampi and Lepakshi. Other GK theme related visual content contributed by IIACD included videos of theatre performances, films, songs, etc. The interactive digital archive of the Virupaksha temple Rangamantapa ceiling murals in Hampi with rich narratives and annotations co-created by the HAI team at IIACD was also integrated with the GK demo (2013-2014).
• Lepakshi Murals Interactive Digital Archive (work in progress): The HAI team is co-creating an open source interactive digital archive of the exquisite ceiling murals of the Natya Mandapa in the Veerabhadraswamy Temple in Lepakshi with software developers Deepak Rathod and Vishwanatha V. Textual and audio narratives prepared by the art and cultural scholars Vijayashree C S and Balaji Srinivasan will be integrated into this interactive digital archive designed and curated by Prof. Uma V Chandru (2015).

• IIACD's research on murals and collaborative work on the Girija Kalyana narratives demo with IIT Delhi resulted in the following publication: Archiving Mural Paintings using an Ontology based Approach, Anupama Mallik, Santanu Chaudhury, Shipra Madan, T B Dinesh, Uma V Chandru, in 11th Asian Conference on Computer Vision (ACCV - 2012), Springer Verlag)
• Conceptual notes based on the collaboration of technologists at IIT Delhi with cultural scholars and technologists at IIACD and a folklorist at Kannada University in Hampi in the thematic exploration approach of Girija Kalyana narratives have been published: An Intellectual Journey in History: Preserving Indian Cultural Heritage, Anupama Mallik, Santanu Chaudhury, T.B Dinesh, and Chaluvaraju, Proceedings ICIAP 2013)
• A book on Hampi murals by art and cultural scholars at the Centre for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Studies at IIACD is in progress and expected to be completed in May 2015