Digitally at Wroclaw Cathedral

We have begun the first stage of digitisation work at Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Wroclaw, which is mainly being carried out in the three chapels of the ambit and the presbytery. Renovation work is ongoing in the church. In addition, it is a must-see and a major point on the tourist map of the capital of Lower Silesia. Mass and other festivities are held there daily due to the prominence of the place. All this affects the schedule of digitisation works, which must take into account the constraints arising from the above circumstances.

Accordingly, we have begun work on the part that is inaccessible to tourists, i.e. the ambulatory, particularly in the three magnificent chapels: St Elizabeth’s, adjacent to the south-east tower on the east side, Baroque from 1682-1700, St Mary’s on the axis of the cathedral, Gothic from 1354-1365, and Elektorska, adjacent to the north-east tower, Baroque from 1716-1724.

At the same time, we are digitizing the presbytery, including the magnificent Mannerist altarpiece by Andreas Jerin, which is a pentaptych, consisting of an altar cabinet (carved with silver figures) and wings, in which eight paintings have been placed. Added to this are the magnificently carved stalls with 40 wooden figures and 18 bas-reliefs, two large tombstones from the Nuremberg Visher workshop, 12 wall-hanging paintings and several free-standing sculptures.

The work involves, among other things, 3D scanning of architectural details, sculptural forms and craftsmanship, the development of gigapixel photographs of the paintings and polychrome, the generation of gigapanoramas at all of the aforementioned sites and the production of photo/video documentation in 4K for the website and interactive virtual tour being developed.