Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province develops a database of visual images of the Chinese nation. [Photo/ourjiangsu.com]

Southeast University in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province is building a database of the Chinese nation's visual images and is expected to complete the work by the end of 2022.

The database is developed by the university's research base for the Chinese nation's visual images. The base is a national-level think tank that pools resources from the schools of architecture, art, and humanities at the university.

Using technologies like big data, artificial intelligence, and image recognition, the database collects a large amount of visual information and labels images according to nine categories including food, clothing, architecture, transportation, industries, as well as etiquette. It is expected to provide a fresh perspective to ethnological and anthropological studies.

The traditional clothing of the Miao ethnic group is mainly black or blue. [Photo/CFP]

Artificial Intelligence can make cluster analysis with just a simple click, said Zhang Tong, director of the School of Architecture. For example, when clicking the "Miao ethnic group" and the "clothing" buttons, the database is able to tell that black constitutes 82 percent of the hundreds of thousands of pictures while blue makes up 60 percent, added Zhang.