France: Microsoft partners with French firm to create Notre Dame Cathedral digital twin

American firm Microsoft has partnered with France’s culture minister and a local company to create a digital twin of the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral.

The tech giant will provide key AI assistance to French start up Iconem, to help them stitch together hundreds of thousands of high resolution photos and build a replica of the cathedral that is expected to be made available to scientists and the public.

Microsoft and Iconem already worked together on a similar project in Rome with a digital twin for Saint Peter’s Cathedral. 

"The technology allows us to see details that are hard to see when you visit the monument [...] At Saint Peter’s, some mosaics are 120 metres above the ground", said Iconem co-founder and CEO Yves Ubelmann.

"Thanks to the technology that we use, including image acquisition technology, we can see every detail, every part of these mosaics.” 

This announcement comes as restoration work on the cathedral is approaching completion, six years after the fire that devastated part of the monument. 

The digital replica should be made available to scientists and the public. 

"It will create a tool for preservationists in the future, hundreds of years from now, because they’ll be able to preserve the Cathedral with this detailed knowledge of what it looks like today", said Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith.

The digital structure is also expected to be displayed in the future Notre Dame Museum, announced in 2023 by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The convention signed by all parties at the French culture ministry on Monday states that Microsoft and Iconem will donate the digital masterpiece to the state of France. 

"This is the right time, this is the right project [...] to maintain this magical, wonderful asset for French society", Brad Smith said.