Microsoft partners with France to create digital twin of Notre-Dame Cathedral
Microsoft is collaborating with the French government to produce a digital twin of Notre-Dame Cathedral, one of France’s most iconic landmarks.
On July 28, the initiative, announced by Microsoft President Brad Smith, aims to digitally preserve the cathedral’s intricate architecture and provide a virtual experience for global audiences, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.
The project comes months after Notre-Dame reopened in December, following a five-year restoration in the wake of the devastating fire that ravaged the Gothic masterpiece in 2019. Dating back 862 years, the cathedral remains the most visited monument in France.
Microsoft said the digital replica will serve as a detailed record of the building’s architectural features, as well as a virtual gateway for those unable to travel to Paris.
The cathedral rose to international fame after serving as the setting for Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which inspired film adaptations, stage musicals, and a Disney animated classic centred on its fictional bell-ringer, Quasimodo.
The tech giant previously collaborated with Iconem, a French firm specialising in digital heritage preservation, to create a digital model 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,” Smith 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 added.
Since 2019, Microsoft has undertaken similar projects to digitally preserve cultural heritage, including Ancient Olympia in Greece, Mont Saint-Michel in France, and commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy.
By Aghakazim Guliyev