"It feels like the heart of France, the soul of Europe, has suddenly been ripped away."
- The Guardian
In an article in the British Guardian , a reporter used the above sentence to describe The fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 16 brought grief to France, Europe and even the world.
The fire was so violent that most of the roof and spire of Notre Dame de Paris were destroyed within an hour. The damage in just one hour required the French to spend several years repairing and restoring .
Before and after the Notre Dame de Paris fire
But the only good thing is that the level of contemporary science and technology has developed to a level that allows us to use various technologies to assist in promoting this massive repair task.
For example, the World Heritage Digital Archive CyArk from the United States is using digital data and 3D modeling technology captured before the fire to build a 3D model of Notre Dame Cathedral.
These models can almost restore the appearance and interior details of Notre Dame de Paris at a 1:1 ratio, which will be of great help to the restoration work of Notre Dame de Paris.
Protecting the world's cultural heritage, building a "digital ark", and delivering the charm of culture to everyone is the purpose of Cyark's establishment. In addition to Notre Dame de Paris, CyArk has currently collected a large number of 3D data of ancient ruins and scenic buildings around the world.
includes the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, which was destroyed by an earthquake last year.
CyArk used scanned data to build a digital version of a metropolitan church that is exactly the same as the physical one!
To create such a 3D model, CyArk needs to use two important sets of data: physical image and size data .
first uses laser scanning technology to measure the external and internal dimensional data of the building.
With these basic data, the team can almost perfectly reproduce the 3D model with proportions that fully respect the facts.
At the same time, cameras and drones are used to capture various pictures and materials in the building and archive them. Doesn’t it seem like it’s not difficult?
In fact, this is not the case. The entire data collection process has many difficulties that ordinary people cannot think of.
For example, when using drones indoors, the GPS signal often fails, so if you want to complete the task of image collection, the operator had better memorize the indoor maps of various churches and museums!
Otherwise, if the drone accidentally hits a mural from hundreds of years ago, do you want to compensate it, compensate it, or compensate it?
If we want to capture the details of the entire building, the team sometimes needs to take tens of thousands of pictures just to record a small venue, which is a huge amount of work. . .
You can't even afford to lose your fortune by trying to sell iron. .
With these two basic information, the next step is 3D modeling.
With the framing and layering, the appearance of the scenic spots and historic sites changed from skeletons to flesh-and-blood and full of vitality.
In fact, CyArk has been cooperating with and Google on since last year. Their project Open Heritage is also online on Google's Arts Culture!
On Arts Culture's website you can see all the 3D monuments that CyArk has modeled.
You can see the Balcony House on the narrow and rugged Soda Canyon.
Physical pictures of the ruins
You can see the Jaulian Buddhist monastery in Pakistan, but it has been destroyed.
Zoom in infinitely, and you can see the exquisite details
Or on a boring weekend, visit Changhua County, Taiwan Lukang Town of temples.
Or you can teleport to Tanzania and visit the Great Mosque standing alone on the plains.
Would you like to take a look at Syria from another angle, the dome of Khan As'ad Pasha in Damascus?
With Open Heritage, you can enjoy magical scenery that most people will never be able to appreciate in this lifetime, and witness the development of human civilization that can only be witnessed by turning back time.
Those who cannot speak and cannot protect themselves brick by brick from natural disasters are actually secretly telling all the stories about them, and these stories need to be cherished and sung.
If we regard the world as an independent and complete living body, wouldn't losing part of civilization be like this living body losing part of its memory?
What Open Heritage is doing is to protect these stories from being lost.
Friends who are interested in this project can log in to the Arts Culture official website or download the Arts Culture APP in the app store to experience it (however, the 3D model of Notre Dame is still under construction and has not been officially launched).
References: 1. https://poly.google.com/user/4U4FhbhDQdR 2. YouTube video: CyArk
"Some stories are worth telling forever"
