Microsoft and The Vatican partner to create a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica [Video]

Forward-looking: Digital twins are designed to faithfully replicate their real-world counterparts, and enable simulations, testing, and other computational tasks to be performed without impacting the originals. They can also serve preservation efforts, as demonstrated by the latest project introduced by the Vatican.

Catholic authorities collaborated with Microsoft to develop a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the most important Christian churches and a globally renowned tourist attraction. Using AI and various scanning technologies, Microsoft and its partners were able to create an accurate digital model of the Basilica, offering people around the world a new way to explore the church and its many hidden corners.

The Basilica di San Pietro projectinvolved capturing hundreds of thousands of images through drones, cameras, and laser scans, using advanced photogrammetry techniques to precisely document the church’s physical features. Iconem, …