# A Systematic Review on Virtual Reality Technology for Ancient Ceramic Restoration
###### Abstract  
The protection of intangible cultural heritage has received much attention, among which the \"ancient ceramic restoration technique\" was included in The National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of China (the fourth batch) in 2014. In preserving and restoring ancient ceramics, virtual reality (VR) technology has been widely applied, as it provides a new way to showcase the appearance and structure of ancient ceramics in a VR environment. This paper provides a systematic review of the application of VR reality technology in the conservation and restoration of ancient ceramics. The methodology comprises four steps: research problem formulation, literature search, study selection and data extraction. A total of 30 articles out of 1479 peer-reviewed database articles from six databases (Web of Science, SpringerLink, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, CNKI, Google Scholar) were extracted and screened, which covers the application of VR technology or VR-based devices in ceramic conservation. It has been found that the existing VR application on ceramic restoration is hardly systematic or user-oriented. Thus, we develop a VR-based Platform on ceramic restoration utilized with Unity and 3 DS Max, ensuring authenticity, minimal intervention, and promising reversible repair within the VR environment. The findings show that VR technology applied to ancient ceramic restoration has contributed to the learning efficiency and learning willingness of users. virtual reality technology; intangible cultural heritage; ancient ceramics; virtual restoration 20232023138991 10.3390/app13158991  
of ancient ceramics is no longer only based on practicality but is motivated by cultural exhibition and esthetic taste [5]. However, traditional ceramic restoration technique proves insufficient in many regards, such as high costs of time, shortage of experts, deficiency of preservation awareness etc. [6; 7]. In a nutshell, the current situation of cultural relic restoration is quite severe [8]. Therefore, studying how to restore traditional ceramics effectively has become urgent. The conception of virtual restoration [9], virtual archaeology [10], and virtual heritage [11] appeared among interdisciplinary research since 3D technologies were applied to cultural heritage approximately in 1995. Unlike the manual techniques evolved from ancient sawing nails, gold manufacturing and modern chemical reagents [12], VR technology utilizes scientific theories and computer technology to achieve a high restoration degree of cultural relics [13]. As a digital display method, VR technology generates multisensory three-dimensional information, such as vision, hearing, and touch, to give users an immersive experience and interact with the environment [14]. VR was proven effective for in-situ, noninvasive and nondestructive restoration and preservation of various art objects, such as ancient architecture, ancient photographs, archaeological pottery, and rock art. During the past 20 years, many scholars and organizations have utilized VR technology to preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) [13; 15; 16; 17]. For example, compared to general information models (e.g., 3D Geographic Information System, Building Information Modeling, and Heritage Building Information Modeling [18; 19; 20]) for the restoration and reconstruction of large spatial scale architectural relics, 3D laser scanning technology and 3D point clouds are mainly applied to the 3D reconstruction of cultural relics in micro to mesoscale models. Under the realm of VR, virtual restoration technologies include deep learning, 3D printing, and 3D laser scanning, which are widely applied to cultural heritage such as stone sculptures, pottery sculptures, and massive architectures [6; 21; 22; 23; 24]. Since ancient ceramic restoration is a branch of cultural relics restoration, these VR technologies are also applied to ceramic restoration [25; 26; 27], which is still relatively rare compared to other archaeological categories.