1. Until 12 hours in the dark, Paris did not sleep at night
At dusk on April 15, 2019, Paris time, Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire. The fire caused the nearly 800-year-old arrow-shaped spire to collapse, the rose window to be damaged, the building to be badly damaged, and billowing smoke obscuring the sky on the banks of the Seine...
When they first saw this news, everyone must have been stunned, like people standing on the banks of the Seine with disbelief and despair. As further reports were made about the fire and the extent of the damage, emotions of sadness, regret, regret, and a glimmer of hope swept in and spread around the world through the Internet.
Construction began in 1163 (the year in which Xin began to work as an official for the Southern Song Dynasty), completed in 1345 (the year when Zhu Yuanzhang first began to work as a monk), was destroyed at the end of the 18th century, was fully revised by the great architect Leduc in the 19th century, and was written into a book by Hugo in 1831, and the story is set in 1482, and will not be open to the public for at least ten years.
At home, even people who have not been to Paris and have not read Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" are also sorry for this news. According to the Qingbo public opinion system, from 00:00 Beijing time on April 16, 2019 to 11:10 on April 16, 2019, a total of 19,237 pieces of relevant information were generated on the whole network, with the most negative emotions, accounting for 66.15%.
It can be seen through the word cloud map that in addition to information keywords such as "Notre Dame de Paris" and "fire", "art", "history", "Hugo", "rose window", "human civilization" and "casualties" are the focus of public opinion. On the Weibo platform, in just a few hours, there were as many as 10 hot searches about Notre Dame de Paris, and many people felt heartbroken for #Rose Window,# and began to rekindle hope when they saw #Kering CEO of France donate 100 million yuan to repair Notre Dame.
The fire of Notre Dame is related to its age, structure and material. Many people have already recited the line in the movie "Before Sunset" that regarded Notre Dame as a symbol of emotional fidelity: "Do you believe that Notre Dame will disappear one day"? As fate would have it, Hugo's Notre Dame cathedral was not the same notion as the Notre Dame cathedral of his time, and the Notre Dame we see today. As a result, there are still many people who say darkly: "People can rebuild Notre Dame, but it has never left anything." ”
Second, the digitized Notre Dame cathedral
While everyone was worried that Notre Dame might suffer irreversible damage, the presence of some voices soothed the hearts of the people a little.
For example, someone tweeted that a colleague had completed a scan of Notre Dame Cathedral before his death, and the website he built included architectural panoramas, 3D and detailed pictures of the church from all angles. After the fire, the vanished Notre Dame Cathedral will live forever in the digital world.
At the same time, many people mentioned the game Assassin's Creed: Revolution, which allows you to wander inside the beautiful buildings of Notre Dame Cathedral. According to media reports, when the game was made, the staff spent more than two years learning to study the structure of Notre Dame, and worked with historians to accurately reconstruct the appearance of Notre Dame de Paris, which may become an important restoration reference. In addition to Notre Dame, more than 40 well-known buildings in the Greater Paris area have been restored in the game.
In addition, as early as 2015, art historian Andrew Talon used laser scanning to record the full picture of the Gothic cathedral very precisely, according to National Geography. This time the accurate laser scanning took several years, including more than 50 locations inside and outside the cathedral, scanning and transmitting data back to every detail in Notre Dame, and finally collecting more than 1 billion data points. Thus, although the real cathedral could not be restored for a long time, the digitized "Notre Dame de Paris" still precisely survives in the human world. And, through this data retention, the reconstruction of Notre Dame cathedral will become possible, and future generations will still be able to see its former majesty.
In fact, whether it's a game that preserves human treasures or a laser scan records the whole picture of a building, these are digital preservation of cultural heritage. Most of the good things are not imprisoned, the clouds are easy to scatter and the glass is brittle, and the changeable world in the future may bring unprecedented challenges to various civilizations and monuments, only by being prepared first, can we try to prevent the arrival of accidents, or try to make up for the losses caused by accidents. Therefore, in recent years, many countries and regions in the world are actively promoting the digital protection, inheritance and promotion of cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage, and new digital technologies such as the Internet, three-dimensional laser scanning, artificial intelligence, AR and VR are increasingly introduced into the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, so that cultural heritage "lives" in the present and moves towards the future.
Third, use artificial intelligence systems to solve the monitoring problem of insufficient human resources
From the 2008 Fire at Soongleemun In South Korea to the 2018 National Museum fire in Brazil, to the burning of the roof and spire of Notre Dame Cathedral today, ancient buildings have suffered heavy losses in every confrontation with fire demons, especially oriental architecture with wooden structures.
In 2008, a fire broke out at Soongyemun Gate in South Korea, because the building was an all-wood structure, the fire spread very quickly, even though The Chomyemun Gate was located in the center of Seoul, the fire department was still powerless, which eventually led to the collapse of the upper level of The First National Treasure of South Korea, The Chonleemun Gate. This is also the main reason why Shan Jixiang, then director of the Palace Museum, proposed the "Safe Forbidden City" project in 2013. Statistics show that in the nearly 600 years of history after the completion of the Forbidden City, nearly 100 fires have occurred, which is the largest number of fires in the existing scenic spots and monuments. To this end, the "Safe Forbidden City" project cost a total of 440 million yuan, and more than 2,000 cameras were installed in one year, some of which were panoramic cameras, which built a "monitoring skynet".
In addition, nearly 10,000 security alarm devices have been installed in the Forbidden City, and the security system has four security lines of perimeter, passage, interior and display cabinet, from large to small, forming an inverted pyramid model of security.
At the end of last year, the Palace Museum also issued the "Public Bidding Announcement for the Renovation Project of the Fire Alarm System in the End Gate Area of the Palace Museum", hoping to renovate and upgrade the corresponding buildings according to the current specifications, so as to adapt to the new fire safety needs with more advanced and reliable technology and equipment, and effectively protect the ancient building complex to the greatest extent.
With the advancement of science and technology, the Forbidden City may need a complete set of solutions to solve the problem of monitoring and early warning. The Institute of Modern Science and Technology Protection of Cultural Heritage of Xi'an Jiaotong University is making attempts in this direction. Last year, xi'an Jiaotong University Cultural Heritage Modern Science and Technology Protection Research Institute, Together with Xi'an Tourism Design and Research Institute and Shenzhen Hesi Zhongcheng Technology Co., Ltd., established a cultural relics monitoring and research center, planning to develop a digital visual monitoring cultural relics protection system with one-time large-area image monitoring, timely alarm, and early warning. This way of artificial intelligence monitoring has the advantages of image monitoring that can surpass human beings, fast early warning speed, and convenient system setting.
At the same time, the cultural relics monitoring and research center project will also include the development of a system that can identify high-definition images of cultural relics in different periods by artificial intelligence and automatically analyze and recognize the degree of damage to cultural relics. One of the reasons why Yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice Nephew Manuscript", which was previously known as the "second line of the world's book", was sent to Japan for exhibition, and one of the reasons for the domestic dissatisfaction was that the public was worried that because the cultural relics were precious but fragile, the transportation process was time-consuming and laborious, and it was very likely to cause damage to the cultural relics. The emergence of this system can help relevant personnel improve the overall work efficiency in the preservation and transportation of cultural relics and reduce the risk of damage to cultural relics.
Fourth, the use of artificial intelligence technology to "cure diseases" cultural relics
In addition to the human factor, time is perhaps the biggest enemy of cultural monuments, and the protection of Dunhuang murals provides reference value for other cultural heritages for how to resist the effects of weathering, wind erosion, rain erosion, and even moisture in the air.
The scientific research team of the Information Technology Research Center for Cultural Heritage Protection and Inheritance of Tianjin University, which lasted for 10 years, is committed to the preventive protection of cultural heritage with modern technologies such as computer vision and artificial intelligence, and supports the "protective umbrella" of science and technology for precious cultural relics. Zhang Jiawan, director of the research center, led the scientific research team to cooperate with the Dunhuang Research Institute of Gansu Province for many years, witnessing and monitoring the changes produced by the Dunhuang murals over several years. "In the past, we mainly relied on laboratory simulations to study the harm of external factors to the murals, but it was difficult to really simulate the real environment that was complex and complex." Professor Sun Jizhou of the Research Center said that there are often many complex factors behind the emergence of any kind of "cultural relics disease", and due to the lack of detection means and data, the correlation between the cultural relics body and the risk source has not been found.
The team selected 11 caves and 47 monitoring points to start continuous annual monitoring of murals and painted cultural relics, using a camera precision repositioning system, focusing on the 4 typical diseases that such cultural relics are prone to appear, including herpes, crisp alkali, nailing, fissures, as well as disease severity, north-south and hierarchical distribution of caves and open states, etc., through micro-change monitoring technology to accurately perceive and measure the small changes produced by the body. At the same time, with the help of image analysis, machine learning and photogrammetry and other related technologies, multi-scale quantitative analysis of four types of diseases in the body was carried out. After monitoring and analyzing some of the murals in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes from 2014 to 2018, the team found for the first time a subtle change in the body of the 0.1 mm mural in a one-year cycle.
"By comparing the changes before and after, we know how the murals are 'sick' and how to prevent them in the future." Professor Feng Wei of the research center said that this set of "preventive protection technology for cultural relics" is a magic weapon for researchers to fight against nature, challenge time, and protect human civilization. At present, the technology has been applied in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Labrang Temple and other heritage sites.
Fifth, the use of AI, 3D printing, VR/AR to restore the ruins
In the case of the Notre Dame fire, we mentioned that people have saved a lot of data for Notre Dame, based on this and the pictures and image data previously retained, using AI, 3D printing and other technologies, the difficulty of restoration work will be greatly reduced.
In the Forbidden City, Shan Jixiang once used "AI restarts the Forbidden City" to express the significance of science and technology in the restoration and protection of buildings and cultural relics. Statistics show that there are a total of 1200 ancient buildings in the Forbidden City, and the Palace Museum has been able to perfectly show the overall structure and specific details of the building through digital scanning and other means. In terms of cultural relics protection and restoration, the Forbidden City has set up a "smart hospital", equipped with 3D printing, physical cooling and heat performance and other equipment, "doing CT" for cultural relics, and superimposed with the original restoration technology, the efficiency is instantaneously improved.
In terms of building restoration of larger projects, Guo Daijie, a famous Chinese ancient architect and professor of architecture at Tsinghua University, led more than 80 researchers to start the digital restoration project of the Yuanmingyuan since 2009, with the help of digital technology, to re-"restore" the original appearance of the Yuanmingyuan, and the current accurate digital restoration scenic spot has reached 60% of the total number of parks. In the past ten years, they have completed the digital restoration of all scenic spots that can collect detailed information, including: more than 80 professionals have consulted more than 10,000 historical archives, drawn 4,000 restoration design drawings, built 2,000 digital architectural models, and divided 120 groups of space-time units in 6 historical periods. The display of the team's research and development results is the "virtual reality" mobile tour system of the Yuanmingyuan and the virtual amusement park system of the Yuanmingyuan. This tour system is a collection of massive data, set positioning, navigation, location recognition, audio explanation and other aspects of the Yuanmingyuan mobile tour products and high-definition immersive experience products. The "augmented reality" IPAD tour developed by the team can achieve a 360-degree round view and obtain a technical invention patent by superimposing the current situation of the site and the historical restoration scene.
In short, science and technology have great potential in the protection of cultural heritage. In addition to the above application areas, artificial intelligence can also play an important role in the inheritance and promotion of cultural heritage. For example, Microsoft Research Asia and Dunhuang Research Institute cooperated to develop the intelligent chatbot "Dunhuang Xiaoice", which has become an "expert" in Mogao Grottoes since it entered the WeChat public account of Dunhuang Research Institute, and "customized" pushed Dunhuang's culture, history, tourism, academic, service and other information to users during the conversation and laughter, bringing a new experience to the use of the Internet platform to spread Dunhuang culture, which is loved by many young people. Since the general public does not know much about the treasure house of cultural heritage such as Dunhuang, intelligent chatbots have natural language understanding capabilities and can provide the required information to users in the shortest possible time, effectively making up for the lack of one-way communication and improving the efficiency of communication.
Above, we explored the practical possibility of using science and technology to protect and display cultural heritage, but the protection of ancient architectural cultural heritage in China cannot be widely promoted at present, which is mainly limited by three factors:
First, the digital protection and display of ancient buildings require scientific and professional research on the building or site, and scientifically restore or reproduce the original appearance of the research object, which should be prepared by a professional research team for a long time;
Second, digital protection means are also restricted by the level of development of virtual reality technology, which involves professional digital media technical support, which requires professional staffing;
Third, when completing restoration research and mastering digital technology, professional coordination between the two is also required, such as the limitation of the number of surfaces or lines of the restoration model by the equipment in VR digital technology. Only by restoring the original appearance of the real building can digital protection have real practical significance, and the seamless connection between the two professions should be ensured.
However, despite the difficulties, for the field of digital protection of cultural relics, it is believed that the bottleneck of technology and the constraints of limited talents will be solved, after all, no one is willing to face the disappearance of thousand-year-old cultural relics due to the negligence of today's people. The Notre Dame fire is a catastrophe of human civilization, after which civilization still needs to be passed on, and there is much more we can do.
The best protection of cultural heritage is to remember and inherit, take advantage of the time, go to see more unseen and unread enough, to understand and feel more beautiful.
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