High-tech race to map Ukraine’s damaged historic buildings

Many of Ukraine’s historical monuments were destroyed by the Russian army, but cultural experts are working to preserve their memory using advanced technology and 3D scans. One of them is a volunteer French engineer, Emmanuel Durand, a 3D data acquisition specialist, who is helping a team of architects, engineers, historical building experts and a museum director to record buildings in Kyiv, Lviv, Chernigiv and Kharkiv. He places his laser scanner in a strategic corner of the severely damaged building and records it from all angles. At the end of the day, Durand assembles all the data on a computer to digitally reconstruct the building. The result is a perfect reproduction, accurate to within five millimetres (a fraction of an inch), which can be rotated in any direction or cut into sections.