French Startup Uses Drones and 3D Images to Reconstruct War-torn Heritage Sites
A French startup is using drones and 3D technology to create digital reconstructions of cultural heritage sites destroyed by conflict in the Middle East. Technicians at Iconem, a Paris-based startup, use drones and digital cameras to take hundreds of thousands of photographs of at-risk or destroyed cultural heritage sites such as Palmyra and Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Information technologists then combine the use of specially created algorithms, artificial intelligence, and supercomputers to process the photographs to produce the 3D reconstructions of the sites. The startup hopes that their digital reconstructions will be used when the time comes to rebuild war-torn cities such as Aleppo and Mosul. “And this 3D model that we’re in the process of generating will help to make the general map and the land register of the city and all the urban analysis which will allow architects to decide how we will reconstruct the city. Which monuments we will be able to keep and which we can restore and which strategy we will adopt for the future reconstruction,” said Iconem founder Yves Ubellman. Sites destroyed in the old city of Aleppo during the seven-year-old Syrian conflict include the Umayyad mosque, the historic citadel, and the Al-Madina Souq. Iconem has also documented Libya’s impressive ancient amphitheater built in the 7th century B.C., Leptis Magna, which has largely escaped damage from conflict but risks damage...
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