How Assassin's Creed Game's Detailed 3D Maps Of Notre Dame Cathedral Help In Its Restoration

A tragedy took centre stage in Paris today, as its famous Notre Dame cathedral went up in flames.

Thankfully there were no lives lost, but the over 800-year-old, a stalwart symbol of Paris and its Catholics, is now part ruin. Luckily, there may be a chance to rebuild.

Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron has already pledged to rebuild the iconic Notre Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris), beginning with a national donation program to raise funds. It's not an easy task though. Reconstructing it will take years, if not decades, and it still won't be the same.

Construction on the medieval French Gothic cathedral was first started in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely completed by 1260. It hasn't been a static monument however, having been badly damaged during the French Revolution in the 1890s. It was later restored to some extent, and was the site of coronations and funerals of many a French ruler.

It was only in 1831, after the publication of Victor Hugo's famous book 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', that people really began taking interest in the cathedral again, and it underwent a massive restoration over the next 30-odd years. It retained its popularity until modern days, with about 12 million visitors annually. That's more than even the Eiffel Tower.

The stained glass windows as seen in Assassin's Creed Unity

Onlookers react to the Notre Dame being consumed in the blaze - Reuters

So you can imagine what a blow it is to Parisians to see one of their most beloved monuments standing in ruin. And though much of it may never be truly restored to original, we have a few things on our side to help.

For one, most of the artworks and artifacts in the cathedral were either safely evacuated, or were already stored in an area that wasn't at risk from the inferno. These can be returned to the cathedral once renovation is complete. The roof however wasn't so lucky.

The roof of the cathedral and its support arches were made from timber harvested at the time of building, making them over 800 years old. They're also now almost completely ashes, aside from in the bell towers. It's tonnes of oak lined with lead, harvested from about 13,000 trees of medieval forests. There's no way France is authorizing that much deforestation today for a single cathedral, especially with the current focus on the environment.

The inside of Notre Dame as seen in Assassin's Creed Unity

At the very least the high-vaulted stone ceiling (designed to feel more spacious and provide better acoustics for hymns and services) were made to protect the rest of the cathedral from the wooden roof collapsing. So hopefully, there's not too much worry regarding the whole structure caving in. But there are no remaining drawings of the cathedral's original construction, so how will Notre Dame ever be fully restored?

Well, that's where other artists and historians come in.

Parisians milling around inside Notre Dame as seen in Assassin's Creed Unity

Columbia University art historian Stephen Murray and architectural historian Andrew Tallon of Vassar College combed through Notre Dame in the 2000s. They wanted to perfectly preserve the cathedral in digital form, so they scanned the entire structure with lasers. This even included the space between the vaulted ceiling and roof, small spiral staircases in the back, and even hidden passages. The lasers measured distance from the instrument to each point on a wall, floor, or ceiling, and at each point Tallon also took panoramic photos from the instrument's position. With over a billion points of data by the end of it, accurate up to 5mm, Tallon was able to create a 3D representation of the cathedral.

Tallon passed away late last year, but his immaculate model lives on, to help rebuild the Notre Dame in a way he never foresaw.

I know this doesn't help, but we have exquisite 3D laser maps of every detail of Notre Dame, thanks to the incredible work of @Vassar art historian Andrew Tallon. Prof Tallon passed away last November, but his work will be absolutely crucial https://t.co/YJl3XXUZTg

¡ª Hannah Groch-Begley (@grouchybagels) April 15, 2019

But there's another unlikely source that includes painstaking detail of the cathedral, both interior and exterior - Ubisoft Montreal.

Yes, we're talking about the game studio here, specifically the one behind 'Assasins' Creed: Unity'. The series has been known to recreate the cities each game is based in with painstaking attention to detail, so much so that they even have an in-house team of historians to help the development team with research on layouts and aesthetics.

When the game launched back in 2014, one of the level artists on the game, Caroline Miousse, told The Verge she spent around two years building a virtual model of the Notre Dame as it existed in 1789. Though they did take a few liberties here and there to add to the grandiose image (like including the spires that were only added much later) most of the reconstruction was exacting to each brick in the structure. In fact, Miousse and the historians aiding her were even diligent enough to recreate which artworks were on display, as well as where and how.

The Notre Dame, as it appears in the game - Ubisoft

So basically, thanks to Tallon and Ubisoft, France has both an incredibly accurate blueprint of the Notre Dame, as well as an exact picture of what it looked like before the fateful fire. Perhaps the wooden roof can't be remade, and perhaps some of the artworks didn't survive. The important point is Paris' iconic monument is far from lost. It lives on in digital archives, just waiting to be put right in the real world.