The photographic edition of a Korean Buddhist document known as "jikji" will be made into a three dimensional cultural database.

Jikji which is short for "jikji simche yojeol" is the oldest existing book of movable metal print in the world.

The Korea Culture Information Service Agency has selected this program proposed by the Cheongju / Jikji Korea Organizing Committee as the winner of its cultural database project.

A number of items will be made into 3D data including the Jikji photo print edition, a typeset edition of Jikji made through wax casting as well as Goryeo dynasty garments and meal tables reproduced by the organizing committee.

The committee plans to use the 3D data during the Jikji Korea Festival to showcase an interactive virtual reality experience for spectators. 

The festival will open in Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province in October.

The Jikji contains the essentials of Zen Buddhism compiled by priest Baegun in the late Goryeo period. The book was printed in two volumes. The first volume is still missing and the original version of the second volume is kept at the National Library of France in Paris.

A photographic version is kept at the Early Printing Museum in Cheongju.

Jikji was printed in movable metal type in 1377, some 70 years before a German, Johannes Gutenberg, invented the movable type printing press.