Some of the most advanced imaging technology available was used to photograph and help preserve Shuilu'an Temple, a unique and historically significant Buddhist temple near Xi'an, China. In a major collaborative effort, media experts and software development specialists from Northwestern University Information Technology (NUIT) worked with the Shaanxi Provincial Wenwujiu (cultural relics bureau) through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to completely document the interior of the Shuilu'an Temple in high-resolution digital imagery.

Once completed, the 2-year project produced extremely hi-resolution images of all interior surfaces, virtual reality (VR) photography of the temple, navigable 3 Dimensional models of select statuary, descriptive and technical metadata on all digitized objects, and a web-based interactive application which tied all components together in relation to their original spatial contexts.