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One of the most important 11th-century monastic ruins in Europe has
been brought back to life with the help of computers. Engineering graduates
from the Academy of Art and Technology in Paris have rebuilt with software
the appearance of the Cluny monastery 360 kilometres south of Paris. Once
the nerve centre of 1000 monasteries throughout Europe, Cluny was largely
destroyed during the French Revolution, with only the south portion of the
main transept and the octagonal bell tower remaining. The graduates, led
by Luc Medard, resculpted the whole abbey with IBM computers. IBM France
took their work a stage further by making a ‘cartoon’ from 5285 three dimensional
respresentations. The cartoon gives tourists an impression of how the monastery
looked at the height of its splendour, even down to the sunlight coming
through windows