A giant 3D printing reproduction of Cave No.3 at the Yungang Grottoes is currently on display at the Yungang Grottoes Art Museum in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province.

According to media reports, this is the first time in the world that 3D printing technology has been used to replicate such a large-scale cultural relic.

The third cave is known for its vast, impressive carvings. The identical reproduction strictly matches the appearance and scale of the original. The copy of the cave measures 17.9 meters tall by 13.6 meters wide, while the main Buddha stands at 9.93 meters tall – with its detached expression reproduced in fine detail.

During the replication process, 3D technicians first collected some 10,000 images of the cave and the Buddha to build up a digital model. The model was then divided into 842 parts to be printed using multiple 3D printers. The final installation and coloring stages took the team three months to complete.

The Yungang Grottoes are a series of ancient Buddhist rock-cut temples located in Datong, Shanxi Province. The UNESCO World Heritage Site has 45 major caves and more than 59,000 Buddha statues, with a grotto complex stretching for about 1 km from east to west.

It is not the first time that 3D printing and digital technology have been used to replicate the Yungang Grottoes. In 2020, technicians and researchers from the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute and Zhejiang University's Cultural Heritage Research Institute successfully duplicated a smaller cave: Yungang Grottoes' Cave No.12.

Archaeology labs, museums and cultural heritage institutions around the world have been using 3D printing technology to duplicate cultural relics to offer access to a wider audience.

The reproduction not only allows people to get much closer to the precious heritage items without damaging the original objects, but also helps to enhance the research, documentation, digitalization and preservation of the relics themselves.

The successful 3D printing of the third cave represents a significant achievement in the field of cultural preservation and technology in China.