In this era of rapid technological advancement, it is particularly urgent to seek new technological methods for the protection of intangible cultural heritage. The purpose of this study is to develop a digital museum system architecture for intangible cultural heritage and to create an immersive experience utilizing virtual reality and augmented reality technologies in the system’s application layer. The coordinate transformation is realized through visual rendering, the OBB collision detection algorithm is applied to improve the realism of the virtual scene, and the tracking registration algorithm is used to determine in real-time the mapping position of the virtual information to be added in the real spatial coordinates. Taking Sanfangqixiang in F city as an example, the protection effect of intangible cultural heritage and its influencing factors are empirically analyzed. The total score of the comprehensive evaluation of the protection effect of Sanfangqixiang is 4.0156, which is in the grade of “good protection effect”, and its regression model passes the F-test so that the NLC’s cultural confidence positively affects the NLC’s protection (t=5.156, standardized coefficient Beta=0.430, p<0.001). Meanwhile, the mediating effect confirmed that NRH cultural self-confidence plays a mediating role in the relationship between NRH virtual experience production factors and NRH protection. The study offers valuable experiences and insights that can be used to preserve intangible cultural heritage.