Assassin’s Creed Unity Redeems Itself with 3D Digital Scans of Notre Dame de Paris

After the burning of Notre Dame de Paris, architects were quick to find ways to rebuild this historic cathedral. What they weren’t expecting to find were at least two highly detailed 3D digital scans of the cathedral- one from a Vassar College professor and architectural historian, Andrew Tallon and the most detailed scan from Ubisoft’s, Assassin’s Creed 8^th installment, Unity.

Assassin’s Creed Unity will become the blueprint for this restoration project, giving everyone a new take on the installment that received a lot of criticism when it originally launched in 2014. Everyone from the users, critics and even French politicians had complaints about Unity. Due to the number of bugs, glitches and other development issues within the video game, Unity quickly became, and still is, the least successful installment of Assassin’s Creed.

 The publishers who received all of the kick back for Unity’s shortcomings are now being praised for their efforts to help restore Notre Dame de Paris. Using Ubisoft’s 3D scans, the architects were able to map out a brick by brick re-creation including most, if not all, of the artwork that was lost in the fire. A 3D scan uses lasers to analyze the way light bounces off of a space or object in order to create a digital copy of its exact measurements. Essentially, this technology creates a digital twin of whatever is recorded.

The restoration plans of the Notre Dame de Paris are expected to take five to six years to resurrect. With the 3D scans building a model that is within a fraction of an inch of the original layout, the question all historic sites representatives are asking is, should they all start developing 3D digital copies of their buildings?

 You can download Assassin’s Creed Unity for free until April 25^th.