The Palace Museum creates interesting products with modern and creative designs. [Photo/news.xinhuanet.com]

The Palace Museum will construct a digital museum in 2015 and complete it by 2016. It aims to guide people to visit the museum on mobile phones and other smart devices.

The curator of the Palace Museum, Shan Jixiang, said they will develop new products with cultural meanings. They also plan to launch three apps and open three digital museums next year for people to visit the Forbidden City at anytime.

After the successful release of the Palace Museum’s first iPad app, The Emperor’s One Day, another three apps will be introduced in 2015. The new apps will explain cultural connotations of royal collections and introduce related academic research and findings.

In addition, several digital exhibition centers will be built at Beijing International Airport, Duanmen, Xiyuhe district and Dagaoxuan Hall, respectively. In these exhibition centers, a set of fragile cultural relics will be displayed through digital technology. "We build them in different places and make the opening hours more flexible so that people can visit without the limitation of the hours at the Palace Museum," Shan said.

At present, the digital museum outside the Duanmen, the first entrance of the Palace Museum, is under construction. Shan said they have made 6 films accessible to visitors by using virtual reality technology. The films will explain the history of the Palace Museum and artistic, technological and cultural meanings of traditional architecture.

As of the end of August this year, the Palace Museum has developed 6,754 creative products, covering silk, porcelain, bronze, brushes, T-shirts, ornaments, bags and fans. These products went viral on the Internet.

"In the coming years, we will focus on balancing the growth of creative products, moving from quantity to quality," Shan said. The museum will develop a series of cultural products with independent intellectual property rights.

"Next year, visitors without entering the Palace Museum can access these products in the digital museums and cultural street outside the Gate of the Divine Might, the northern gate of the Palace Museum," Shan said.