Dr. Chuck's Portfolio

Recreating the 1785 Parisian Salon in VR

The Salon project combines many disciplines:

  1. Art History
  2. Digital Restoration
  3. Virtual Materials Production
  4. Extended Reality Simulation

Vue du Salon du Louvre de 1785 by Pietro Martini

Pietro Martini's engraving of the 1785 Salon


VR reconstruction began with Pietro Martini's engraving of the 1785 Salon. With help from the brochure for the event (known as the Livret) and the digital archives of the Louvre, paintings have been identified and placed in the Unreal Engine scene.


Vue du Salon du Louvre de 1785 in VR

View of the 1785 VR Scene


Digital materials have been created for many of the works. Some of these techniques include:

  1. Using the Quixel Bridge to bring in photogrammetric scans for the floors, walls, ceilings, and doorways
  2. Restoring damaged paintings using manual masking and generative AI
  3. Prompting AI to recreating lost or stolen works of art
  4. Manipulating normal maps, lighting, and shading to produce effects resembling oil paintings and water colors


More to come as the project continues to progress! This work was performed with my collaborators at Lindenwood University (James Hutson, Jay Ratican, and Trent Olsen).