Microsoft is working with the French government to digitally recreate Paris' iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral, France’s most visited monument, the US tech company said Monday.
Notre-Dame was reopened last December after a five-year restoration following a devastating fire in 2019. The blaze destroyed much of the cathedral’s roof, including its iconic wooden spire, which collapsed during the fire.
A digital replica of the Gothic masterpiece will serve as a record of the building's architectural details, Microsoft said. It will also provide a virtual experience for visitors and those unable to visit.
Last year, Microsoft worked with Iconem, a French company that specialises in digitalisation of heritage sites, on a digital replica of St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.
"One of the things we learned from the work at St Peter's is how a digital twin can help support the ongoing maintenance of a building. Because you capture a digital record of every centimetre and what is there and what it's supposed to look like," Brad Smith, Microsoft president, told Reuters.
"The ability to create a digital twin right now I think will provide an enormously valuable digital record that I believe people are going to be using 100 years from now," he said.
Data shared with researchers
Last year, a team of scientists from CNRS also built a a virtual twin of Notre-Dame as part of the effort to restore the cathedral.
Scientists build a virtual twin of Notre-Dame to help restore its glory
The leader of the digital team and a CNRS researcher, Livio de Luca, said the virtual twin helped architects by giving them missing details about how the cathedral looked before the fire.
He explained that these data will be shared with researchers around the world.
Since 2019, Microsoft has digitally preserved heritage sites and events including Ancient Olympia in Greece, Mont Saint-Michel in France and the 80th anniversary of the allied beach landings in Normandy.
(with newswires)
