Citation: Wang, T.; Ma, Z.; Zhang, F.;
Yang, L. Research on Wickerwork
Patterns Creative Design and
Development Based on Style Transfer
Technology. Appl. Sci. 2023, 13, 1553.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
app13031553
Academic Editors: Phivos Mylonas,
Katia Lida Kermanidis and
Manolis Maragoudakis
Received: 5 December 2022
Revised: 19 January 2023
Accepted: 22 January 2023
Published: 25 January 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Article
Research on Wickerwork Patterns Creative Design and
Development Based on Style Transfer Technology
Tianxiong Wang
1,
*, Zhiqi Ma
2
, Fan Zhang
1
and Liu Yang
3
1
School of Art, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
2
School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
3
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei 230601, China
* Correspondence: wangtx_2018@163.com
Abstract:
Traditional craftsmanship and culture are facing a transformation in modern science and
technology development, and the cultural industry is gradually stepping into the digital era, which
can realize the sustainable development of intangible cultural heritage with the help of digital
technology. To innovatively generate wickerwork pattern design schemes that meets the user’s
preferences, this study proposes a design method of wickerwork patterns based on a style migration
algorithm. First, an image recognition experiment using residual network (ResNet) based on the
convolutional neural network is applied to the Funan wickerwork patterns to establish an image
recognition model. The experimental results illustrate that the optimal recognition rate is 93.37% for
the entire dataset of ResNet50 of the pattern design images, where the recognition rate of modern
patterns is 89.47%, while the recognition rate of traditional patterns is 97.14%, the recognition rate
of wickerwork patterns is 95.95%, and the recognition rate of personality is 90.91%. Second, based
on Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networks (CycleGAN) to build design scheme generation models
of the Funan wickerwork patterns, CycleGAN can automatically and innovatively generate the
pattern design scheme that meets certain style characteristics. Finally, the designer uses the creative
images as the inspiration source and participates in the detailed adjustment of the generated images
to design the wickerwork patterns with various stylistic features. This proposed method could
explore the application of AI technology in wickerwork pattern development, and providing more
comprehensive and rich new material for the creation of wickerwork patterns, thus contributing to the
sustainable development and innovation of traditional Funan wickerwork culture. In fact, this digital
technology can empower the inheritance and development of more intangible cultural heritages.
Keywords: deep convolutional neural network; ResNet; style transfer; wickerwork patterns
1. Introduction
Culture is a prominent benchmark for countries and nations [
1
], so the protection of
cultural heritage is a topic of common concern all over the world. Its essence is to protect
the material and spiritual wealth of human society through various means, to realize the
inheritance of human history, art, and science. While facing the world and accepting
multi-ethnic cultures, maintaining Chinese national characteristics and style in traditional
intangible culture is a key problem. As an intangible cultural heritage, the inheritance of
arts and crafts should be active and innovative. On the one hand, it should rescue the
existing representative intangible art images; on the other, we should also actively guide
the reform of intangible art images [
1
], on the basis of maintaining national tradition and
cultural characteristics as far as possible, and to integrate some modern elements to adapt
them to the social needs and people aesthetic preferences.
In the background of the national plan to revitalize traditional craftsmanship, it is
imperative to explore the innovative development of traditional craftsmanship intangible
heritage protection, so as to meet the needs of modern society and daily life. With the
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13, 1553. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13031553 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci
