Microsoft To Help France Showcase Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral in Digital Replica (reuters.com) 14
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is teaming up with the French government to create a digital replica of Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral, France's most visited monument, the U.S. tech company's president, Brad Smith, said on Monday. The 862-year-old Gothic masterpiece was reopened last December after a five-year restoration following a devastating fire in 2019. A digital replica 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.
VR? (Score:2)
So there will finally be a use for expensive VR headsets?
Is there a .wad file? (Score:4, Funny)
The FPS world is waiting.
Re: (Score:2)
Years ago a studio made a playable walk through of Notre Dame with the Unreal engine. Because google is awful anymore I can only find a few references in academic papers.
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Nice, some sort of Da Vinci Code/Ghostbuster mashup?
What better place for medieval demon hunters to entomb the dark lord's fallen angels than have them be petrified as gargoyles? But wait, what if there's a fire...
c.f. Dr Who's Weeping Angel story arc.
WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
So shit like this pisses me off for a different reason.
Why?
Because Microsoft ALREADY did this in 2007, nearly TWO DECADES AGO, and then canned the tech and threw it away. We ALREADY had a full 3D model of Notre-Dame. It was cool. It was awesome. It was interactive. And it was entirely dynamically generated just from photographs on Flickr.
The technology was called PhotoSynth. But you already KNOW they're gonna shove some fucked up bullshit "AI" marketing behind this, its going to take longer to produce results, and the results are going to be shittier than we already had.
https://www.ted.com/talks/blai... [ted.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Wow man that's a throwback I remember this presentation, it was so cool.
I guess parts of this tech have disseminated out into photo tools elsewhere and I know PhotoSynth was an actual thing for awhile but yeah this never seemed to materialize to the potential shown.
Re: (Score:2)
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Just a moment of forgetfulness [imgflip.com].
Will it feature (Score:2)
L'écran bleu de la mort?
The real question (Score:2)
Will it be hosted on SharePoint?
Planning Ahead (Score:2)
A digital replica will serve as a record of the building's architectural details
So when it burns down again they will be ready!
Re: (Score:2)
They'll be ready with the architectural details, then they'll calmly wait another 300 years so a batch of 2000 oak trees is ready for harvest. Or maybe only 294 years now if they started planning ahead when it last happened.