historian uses lasers to unlock mysteries of gothic cathedralshistorian uses lasers to unlock mysteries of gothic cathedrals

Every year, 13 million people visit Paris\'s Notre Cathedral and enter the bottom of the tower through huge wooden doors, planted with trees as strong as mountains.
They stood in front of the wall with stained glass, staring at the ceiling supported by delicate stone ribs.
If its beauty and grandeur are obvious, then a lot of things about Notre are not.
First of all, we don\'t know who built this cathedral or how it was built. (
Explore 800
History of Notre Cathedral. )
Paris Bishop Maurice de Sully commissioned the construction of this huge church complex around 1160.
However, the names of those who built the masterpiece for the first time were forgotten by history.
They left only a few centuries of speculation.
\"There is so much ink on that building,\" says art historian Andrew Talon . \".
\"So much is totally wrong.
\"At the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C. , a laser scan can see part of the south central temple. C.
Appear transparent (left).
Scanning is a collection of data points; a close-
The Up view makes them see-through.
A former composer
Be a monk, be yourself
Said gearheadâ x80 x94 or, in his words, the history of the intention of \"tacklehead.
With the help of the 21st
Century laser scanner, who is digging clues hidden in the ancient stones of the Virgin and other medieval buildings, has revolutionized our understanding of how these spectacular buildings are built.
Taron, who died in November
2018, 49, is not the first person to realize that a laser scanner can be used to deconstruct Gothic architecture.
But he was the first to use a scan into the minds of medieval builders.
\"Every building is moving,\" he said . \"
\"When the foundation moves, it will deform when the sun is heating on one side.
\"The way the building moves reveals its original design and the choices that the main builder has to make when the building is not going as planned.
Tracking this thinking process requires accurate measurement. (
See Vintage Photos of the cathedral from the archives of Nat Geo. )
For a long time, the tools used to measure medieval buildings were almost as old as the building itself: plumbers, ropes, rulers and pencils.
It\'s boring to use them, time
Consumption and errorprone.
\"You can\'t hang in the vault and measure it with your hands,\" says Michael Davis, an art historian at hollyyork Mountain College, who used these primitive tools to spend nine weeks measuring two churches.
Laser scanning, with its superb accuracy, does not miss anything.
For example, a laser beam mounted on a tripod sweeps through the choir of the cathedral, measuring the distance between the scanner and every point it hits.
Each measurement is represented by a colored point, which accumulates three
3-dimensional images of the cathedral.
\"If you do a good job, the scan results are\" within 5mm, \"Talon said\". 5 centimeter].
\"Peter Allen, two researchers at Columbia University, a computer scientist, and Stephen Murray, an art historian, trying to do the first laser scan of Gothic buildings in Beauvoir Cathedral in 2001 in northern Paris, Murray used to measure with tape and wooden calipers by hand.
Unfortunately, the scanner \"actually went up in a burst of smoke.
\"It did smoke,\" Murray said . \".
\"At that time, people didn\'t know how to render [the data]into a three-
Manageable size model.
\"Talon came up with how to weave laser scans together to make them easy to manage and beautiful.
Each time he scans, he also takes a spherical panoramic photo from the same location, capturing the same three photos
Dimension space.
He mapped the picture to the laser.
Points generated by scanning;
Each point becomes the color of the pixel of that position in the photo.
So the amazing real panoramic photos are very accurate.
At Notre, he scanned from more than 50 locations inside and outside the cathedral, collecting more than 1 billion data points.
His doctor, Murray, said Talon. D.
Columbia University\'s advisor, \"was able to combine the amazing grasp of technology with the great humanistic vision of art historians.
\"Tall, thin, short
With short hair and narrow glasses, Taron leans forward as he speaks, depicting architectural features with his hands.
He popped out of the chair, eager to show visitors the exact location of his views on the projected image. His high-
The technical method of Gothic architecture seems doomed.
Growing up in Milwaukee as a child, he said, \"I like gadgets . \"
He opened the scroll. to-
Reel tape deck and play using a synthesizer.
He is also fascinated by Notre.
\"I have a little guide and I annotate it like a madman,\" he said . \" Describe the year of his fourth grade, living in Paris, while his mother wrote a paper in the history of theater.
\"I am eager to know the usual problem.
Who did it?
How did they do it?
Can I be on one of those sections?
\"The answer to the last question is yes, but it will take a long time to get there.
He admitted: \"I didn\'t tell my French colleagues in my career because they would think I wasn\'t serious.
\"As an undergraduate at Princeton University, he majored in music, but also took every class taught by Professor Robert Mark, an engineer who studied Gothic architecture.
After graduation, he started his trip.
He went to France first, where he studied medieval acoustics.
The next stop is New York City, where he started a music studio.
Then he stopped at a monastery in northern California to explore the life of a monk. (
The monks told him that he was not fit to do so. )
The music brought him back to the Gothic cathedral.
Murray, an art historian at Columbia University, is working on a multimedia project at the hypnotist cathedral that requires someone to create \"the sound that the cathedral may make \".
\"Mark told him that there was only one person he should contact.
This project is labor of love.
\"I finally realized that what I really want to do is be able to mix all of these things together-a love for medieval architecture, art, technology and knowledge,\" Talon said . \".
Andrew Talon scanned more than 45 historic buildings with a laser, including the cathedral in charterres, France.
Murray introduced him to laser scanning technology.
More than a decade later, Talon, now a lifelong professor at Vasa college in the Department of Art, has scanned about 45 historic buildings.
\"The same excitement I was eager to see when I was a child, I wanted to go there, well, I was there, it was exciting, he said.
Some of the excitement comes from the dizzying heights Taron has to take to his job.
\"I want to see the building right below the great Oriental rose window,\" he said at the French Cathedral in northern France . \" More than 80 feet (25 meters)off the ground.
\"I had to go out in order to get around it.
\"When his wife Mary saw the picture, she threatened to break his camera.
\"You can\'t just fly in a helicopter, scan the building, call it a day,\" says John Ochsendorf, an engineer at MIT who is using talong\'s scan to create a small
The scale model of the Burri Cathedral and 3-D printer.
\"You really need to get into all the difficult places you can get into: the top of the roof, the top of the vault, the interior of the stairwell, all the hidden spaces that people don\'t usually see.
\"For the father of four boys under the age of eight, Talon, these findings make the mess around worthwhile.
\"If I have text messages at every point, I can look at the text and try to get back to the builder\'s mind,\" he said . \".
\"I don\'t, so this is my detective job.
\"Laser scanning has led to surprising new information about Notre builders.
On the one hand, they take shortcuts sometimes.
Despite the medieval builder\'s efforts to create the perfect residence for the spirit of God, a scan of Taron shows that the west end of the cathedral is \"a mess \". . . a train wreck.
\"The internal pillars don\'t line up, and some aisles don\'t.
The workers did not seem to remove the remains of the existing buildings from the site, but built around them. (
Read \"Ode to the cathedral 1968\" by Nat Geo. )
Cutting costs could be disastrous.
According to the change in style, scholars have long suspected that the work of the western facade had stopped for some time before the tower was built.
When Talon scanned, he found out why.
The statue line at the King\'s gallery above three huge gates is almost 1 feet (. 3 meters)out of plumb.
Talon concluded that the western facade built on unstable soil began to tilt forward and north.
The building had to stop before the builder was convinced that the ground had been compressed enough to recover.
After about 10 years of anxiety.
Talon\'s laser scan shows some of the pillars of the central hall of the parisonot Church
The cathedral is not lined up because they are built around the existing structure.
When building a flying Help Wall, builders are more sensible, and some scholars believe it was added after the cathedral was built.
After measuring the walls, Taron determined that the flyer was part of the original design of the cathedral, which he called the flyer.
The basement on the ceiling should push the walls out, but \"the upper part of the building has not moved an smidgen in 800. \" The reason?
\"There\'s a flying Wall from get-there.
\"Push the wall inward to create a stable balance of power.
Last spring, Talon scanned the National Cathedral in Washington, D. C. C.
Long after the end of the Middle Ages, began in 1907.
He is looking for evidence of the influence of William Goodyear, a famous American art historian who believes that the charm of the Gothic cathedral dates back to the intentional introduction of builders
The architect in charge of completing the National Cathedral consulted Goodyear, who wondered if he would find some intentional defects in the new church. Gothic architectureHe did.
Although most of the structures are very vertical, the huge pillars in the center of the cathedral have been built everso-
Slightly outward, the choir is not exactly aligned with the middle hall.
\"For Goodyear, imperfections are a secret sauce, and medieval people spill over their buildings to make them beautiful,\" Tolon said.
Talon thinks the real \"secret sauce\" is faith.
He said: \"Building a perfect building is a biblical, moral requirement,\" \"because the stone of the building is directly identified with the stone of the Church\" the person who constitutes the main body of the church.
\"I like to think that this laser scanning work, and even some of the traditional scholarships that I have done, is informed by this important spiritual world,\" Talon said . \".
\"This is such a beautiful idea.