Developing Frameworks for Digitizing Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The digital transformation of cultural content faces several challenges because of the lack of common frameworks and standardised techniques. This leads to fragmented data, unreliable project results, and ineffective workflows. This work develops integrated methodological structures to digitise both tangible and intangible cultural assets within a single framework. For tangible heritage, best practices for capturing 3D data via photogrammetry and laser scanning at different scales (e.g., large-scale, medium-scale, small-scale, and interior spaces) are defined. To preserve oral storytelling, soundscapes, dialect dictionaries, social customs, and culinary practices, the authors develop systematic digital curation workflows for intangible heritage using cloud-native architectures and multimedia. The suggested concepts are presented in an online guide and validated through concrete examples. An expert assessment by fifteen international experts in cultural heritage digitalisation shows strong reliability, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.79 to 0.88 across all workflows. Statistical analysis supports the proposed approach by showing that tangible and intangible process ratings do not differ significantly (p>0.05). For all workflows, more than 96% of expert ratings were at or above the 4.0/5.0 acceptability standard. Time analysis shows that, compared with ad hoc procedures, the recommended workflows reduce project duration by 30–50% and rework rates from 30–40% to 10–15%. Finally, the success rates for new developers rise from roughly 45% to 85%.