Microsoft and the Vatican create a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica, using AI

With the help of 400,000 photographs, and Microsoft’s artificial intelligence, St. Peter’s Basilica already has a detailed 3D digital replica, that we can visit from the browser.

In 2025 the Jubilee will be celebrated in Rome, where more than 30 million pilgrims are expected. It only happens once every 25 years, so the Vatican wanted to celebrate creating a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilicaconsidered the first temple of Christianity.

St. Peter’s Basilica was built supposedly on the tomb of Saint Peter, in the year 1506, although it took more than a century to complete. Geniuses such as Michelangelo, Donato Bramante and Bernini worked here. Almost all the Popes are also buried in the temple.

The digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica

The French company Iconem, specialized in digital preservation, has taken more than 400,000 high-resolution photographs of the interior and exterior of the templeusing all types of media. From classic cameras to drones.

All of this data has been stored in Microsoft’s Azure cloud. An artificial intelligence has been in charge of processing these images, fusing them in 3D, to generate a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The AI ​​is capable of “filling” possible gaps between photographs, to create the 3D replica. It will also be very useful to restore the temple, since has identified cracks, tile failures and other problemswhich will allow restaurateurs to prioritize the most urgent matters.

You can see how the project was carried out in the opening video of the news.

The goal of creating this digital replicais to allow everyone to visit an exact replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, from the comfort of their home.

Besides, This digital twin could be used to restore the temple if a catastrophe occurssuch as fires or earthquakes. It’s something they didn’t do with Notre-Dame Cathedral, and then regretted it when it was destroyed by fire.

You can now visit the digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican created with AIin this web page. It is in Spanish and there is even a guide who will explain, using voice, the different areas.

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Tags: Photography, Artificial intelligence, Video, Viral, Microsoft, Curiosities