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The Vijayanagara Murals digital heritage project was initially co-conceptualized in 2009 by the Project Coordinator, Prof. Uma Chandru, a cultural anthropologist and designer who currently leads the Heritage Arts Initiative (HAI) at the Centre for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Studies at IIACD. The Principal Investigators of this Digital Heritage project are Prof. Vijay Chandru who heads the Digital Technology team at IIACD and Prof. Nalini K Rao, Director of the Centre for Cultural Heritage and Tourism Studies (CHATS). The multidisciplinary project team also included Vinod Raja (Filmmaker and Mural Photographer), Malini Ghanathe (Art Historian) and another senior technologist Dr. T. B. Dinesh and their inputs were integrated into the proposal when it was being drafted by Prof. Uma V Chandru in 2009. The original project proposal was later modified in 2010 by the PIs, Prof. Vijay Chandru and Prof. Nalini K Rao to fit within the guidelines and budget sanctioned by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Prof. S. Settar (Historian), Visiting Professor, National Institute for Advanced Studies serves as Advisor to this project.

The award winning filmmaker and expert mural photographer, Vinod Raja who researched the Hampi and Lepakshi murals with Prof. Uma V Chandru at CHATS in 2011-2011, photographed and rendered the exquisite Lepakshi temple murals in high resolution. He also travelled to Kanakagiri in April 2011, but to the dismay of all at CHATS, the temple murals there had been sandblasted and destroyed by the temple authorities. As the project funds were delayed, Vinod left the project in 2013 to pursue documentary projects. Malini Ganathe had moved to Delhi in 2010 to manage a Gallery and was unable to participate in this project when the sanctioned project funds were received in February 2011.

In 2014, Vijayashree C S (Art Historian, specialized in Hampi murals and creative writing), Balaji Srinivasan (Artist, Art and Folklore Researcher) and Gandhi Balasubramanian (Art and Folklore Researcher) joined the HAI art and cultural research team at CHATS to work on the Vijayanagara Murals project. Gandhi and Balaji had been collaboratively researching and documenting murals, stucco, sculpture, folk theatre and folklore in several temples in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. Balaji's prior research also includes various classical epics and treatises on art. His expertise as a practising Tanjore artist and in depth field and textual research on Tanjore, Mysore, Deccani, Maratha, Orissa and other paintings, dance, folk theatre and folklore of Tamil Nadu and other states has brought new insights to this project. This project has been further enriched by Vijayashree's art historical research insights on Hampi murals as well as on the murals of Thanjavur, Srirangam and Tiruparuttakunram in Tamil Nadu.

In 2014, Gandhi, Balaji and Uma conducted further research on the murals in Hampi and Hollalagundi. Vijayashree joined them in Lepakshi. Concerned about the loss of paintings in Hollagundi and other sites in South India, the HAI team decided to expand the project's focus from Hampi and Lepakshi to other important Vijayanagara and post Vijayanagara mural sites in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The technical team was expanded in 2014 to include three software developers - Pradeepa C, Deepak Rathod and Sunil Chinagundi. Under the guidance of Prof. Chandru and Dr. T.B. Dinesh, Pradeepa supported by Sunil and Deepak co-created the open source interactive Hampi murals ceiling plan exhibited at Digital Hampi Exhibition and Workshop at Delhi. Vijayashree researched, annotated the murals and added narratives for the panels and subpanels with the exception of the Ashta Dikpalas narrative which was prepared by Balaji Srinivasan. Balaji and Prof. Chaluvaraju of Hampi university also contributed narratives of the Girijakalyana panel. A summary of Prof. Chaluvaraju's audio narrative in Kannada by Pradeepa, translated to English by Bhanu Prakash employed by Dr. Dinesh's NGO was also added to the Hampi murals plan.

Sunil watermarked the Hampi and Lepakshi murals interactive plan images and created the CAD drawing of the Lepakshi Natya Mandapa ceiling plan, under the guidance of Prof. Uma Chandru and Vijayashree. Sunil accepted a teaching job in Maharashtra in Dec 2014. Pradeepa who was working on the software platform for the Lepkashi murals interactive ceiling plan also left the project in Dec 2014 to pursue an MTech degree in web engineering at Bangalore University.

Vishwanatha V joined the technology team in February 2015 and is co-developing the open source software platform for the interactive Lepakshi Natya Mandapa ceiling murals plan with Deepak. They will integrated the annotated images and narratives prepared by Balaji and Vijayahsree. Prof. Uma Chandru has designed and curated the Hampi and Lepakshi murals interactive digital artifacts.

Gandhi and Vijayashree collaborated with Balaji in the making version 1 of the "Revisiting Hampi and Lepakshi Murals" video that was scripted by Balaji with inputs from Uma, Gandhi and Vijayashree and showcased at Digital Hampi Workshop and Exhibition in November 2014. Technological support for the video was provided by Pradeepa, Deepak and Sunil.