Luc Noppen

Digital Modelling Of Québec City Churches

Works on digital modelling of Quebec City churches started in 1997, based on the assessment of three objectives laid down at the beginning of the project. Those objectives were: first, to bring to people an overall panorama of the churches of Quebec based on synthesized images of church digital models, and to promote churches’ architectural heritage values; second, to offer to professionals, high quality 3D digital models, which can be used for visualization and simulation purposes for their own proposed churches’ new occupations and functions; and third, to allow students to develop their 3D computer skills and expertise while being introduced to the architectural heritage of Quebec churches. The diffusion of modelling results in the form of virtual objects, synthesized images and panorama was at the beginning of the project a major objective. The second objective, to make available 3D digital models to the current church owner and to professionals, aimed at facilitating the use of information technologies (IT) during the design process, developing their architectural proposals using visualizations and simulations and to communicate and diffuse their own proposals. Finally, regarded as a complex process, digital modelling occupies a privileged place for training students at the School of Architecture of Laval University and, as such, this project has been a privileged opportunity. In this paper, the relevance of this work and its impact are discussed with regard to those objectives and the huge digital archives thus created as a contribution to the architectural heritage of Quebec City.