Project Tirtha is an open academic initiative focused on building high-quality 3D models of cultural heritage sites using crowdsourced images. The word Tirtha is Sanskrit for "a place of pilgrimage", commonly referring to sacred sites across Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

Our mission is to preserve and showcase the beauty and cultural significance of heritage sites worldwide. By empowering the public to contribute images, and by making the resulting 3D reconstructions openly accessible, we aim to broaden awareness and appreciation of these irreplaceable cultural landmarks. We believe this participatory approach can inspire future generations to protect and sustain them.

Project Tirtha brings together researchers, students, heritage organizations, and public contributors to reimagine digital heritage through advances in artificial intelligence and computer vision. What began as a research effort has grown into a community-driven ecosystem for scalable, open, and accessible cultural preservation — bridging academia, the public, and institutions dedicated to safeguarding cultural memory.

All projects under this organization are fully open-source and under active development. Contributions of all kinds are welcome: whether code, data, documentation, ideas, or partnerships for open digital heritage preservation.

Learn more at https://smlab.niser.ac.in/project/tirtha/ and explore our repositories to get involved. The main repository for the platform is: https://github.com/project-tirtha/tirtha-public.