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There Are Two Notre-Dames Now. One Is Made of Stone. The Other Is Made of Data.

France is scanning its cathedrals, restoring its paintings with AI film, and digitizing 25 million documents. It's calling it preservation. It's a backup. There are two Notre-Dames now. One is made of stone and oak and lead, and it nearly burned to the ground in 2019. The other is made of data, and it already existed before the fire — which is the only reason we know exactly what the first one looked like. The second Notre-Dame is the one you can walk through on a laptop. The first one is the one that matters. Livio De Luca, research director at the CNRS, led this wild, sprawling team that built what they call a "digital twin." It's not a pretty render. It's a collaborative platform, a kind of Google Earth for Notre-Dame. You click on a beam in the roof frame and you get everything attached to it — dendro dating, analysis of charred wood, 3D scans, old photos. It's designed to keep absorbing information forever. Not an image. A memory palace made of point ...