Digitizing Cultural Heritage & Preserving History in The Metaverse: Insights from the East Hall of the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia

East Hall is a historical building situated in the Ganesha Campus of the Bandung Institute of Technology. Metaverse is a light detecting and ranging (LiDAR) technology in digitizing. This study presents an application of Metaverse in the preservation of the East Hall. Through this, the preservation of heritage buildings takes on a new meaning, allowing not only preservation of the physical structure but also capture its history as digital assets. The design process of the method has three key phases: (1) pre-production, which entails the acquisition of data from LiDAR, unmanned aerial vehicles, blueprints, and location photos; (2) production, which involves the meticulous creation of 3D assets through the utilization of SketchUp and Blender software; and (3) post-production, where the metaverse platform is developed using Unreal Engine for the metaverse local network, whereas the VRbased metaverse online network relies on Spatial.io, reflecting its current limitations. This ensures efficiency, while preserving accuracy and detail in representing assets, effectively bridging the gap between the metaverse’s local and online platforms, which are yet to be fully supported.