Projects

This project aims to digitally reconstruct in 3D two church portals from their preserved remains (a method known as anastylosis): the portal of the former collegiate church of Notre-Dame de Corbeil and that of Sainte-Marie d’Arthous Abbey (Landes). The techniques developed will then be applied to other sites in the Hauts-de-France region, such as the sculpted portal of Boulogne-sur-Mer Basilica, the collections of carved stones from Vaucelles, Saint-Omer, and Saint-Josse de Dommartin abbeys, the collections of the Musée de Picardie, and the lapidary deposit of the destroyed church of Saint-Médard d’Aizy-Jouy (Aisne). The goal is to digitally restore these architectural elements to better study and showcase them.
Project leaders: Mathieu Beaud, Élise Bailleul, and Marc Gil (Hartis)

This project aims to equip a virtual agent with AI capabilities, enabling it to understand, predict, and respond in the most appropriate way to human actions. To achieve this, the project proposes modelling, learning, and generating human interactions using the most advanced AI techniques. While current 3D human motion synthesis approaches can produce high-quality animations of digital humans performing a wide variety of actions and gestures, there remains a significant technological gap in studying the complex dynamics of multi-human interactions within this paradigm.

Project leader: Angela Bartolo (Scalab)

DEMDIF focuses on the design of immersive scenographies that transport audiences into a virtual environment. The goal is to enable artists to access all types of immersive displays that integrate their personal creation tools. Immersive displays, whether in virtual or mixed reality, make it possible to design new scenographies for performances or artistic installations, with both artists and audiences transported into a virtual environment.

Project leaders: Florent Berthaut (Cristal) and Lionel Palun (Artist, 720 Digital)

The InCity project uses the example of the Greek city of Apollonia of Illyria to establish a workflow model—from field data acquisition to 3D virtual reconstruction—that allows us to visualise, with the greatest possible historical accuracy, the entrance to a city and thus explore the perception of urbanity. On the scale of the Hauts-de-France region, this workflow can be applied to other sites and can also benefit from the knowledge, techniques, and methods used to study fortifications from other periods, particularly Vauban’s fortresses, in synergy with researchers from other research units and universities in the region.

Project leader: Nicolas Genis (Hartis)

The InCity project uses the example of the Greek city of Apollonia of Illyria to establish a workflow model—from field data acquisition to 3D virtual reconstruction—that allows us to visualise, with the greatest possible historical accuracy, the entrance to a city and thus explore the perception of urbanity. On the scale of the Hauts-de-France region, this workflow can be applied to other sites and can also benefit from the knowledge, techniques, and methods used to study fortifications from other periods, particularly Vauban’s fortresses, in synergy with researchers from other research units and universities in the region.

Project leader: Nicolas Genis (Hartis)

This project aims to understand how visual and auditory information influences our memory during social interactions (known as conversational memory). The goal is to develop an innovative cognitive model that integrates these cues to better design avatars and interactions in virtual environments. Indeed, the precise role of visual elements in memorisation remains poorly understood.

Project leader: Dominique Knusten (Scalab )

The project aims to develop a new evaluative and ecological test of episodic memory for elderly people in virtual reality. A first phase in a real-life setting in a therapeutic kitchen began in 2023. Thanks to the 2023 Prématuration AAP, it was possible to acquire the necessary basic equipment, and an initial simulation in Unity has already been developed. This new support will allow the prototype to be finalised and tested with an elderly population, which will also help to develop initial recommendations for the use of VR with seniors.

Project leader: Marion Luyat (Psitec)

The project aims to enable a precise comparison of the two exhibition spaces in London and Paris, which were in fierce competition in the 1780s, through a virtual and immersive visit. This will provide historians with new and complementary tools to understand the visitor experiences in each location during the 18th century, as well as the arguments used to prefer one over the other. To achieve this, the two spaces, their lighting systems, and the arrangement of the artworks will be restituted in 3D, based on the iconographic sources of the time that document the exhibitions held in 1787. The project is a collaboration between the University of Lille, the University of Kent in Canterbury, and the Louvre Museum.

Project leader: Gaëtane Maës (Hartis)

Human-robot symbiosis relies on the crucial ability to create robots that interact transparently with people, as naturally and humanly as possible. A major element of this interaction is the coherence between the robot’s visual appearance and its vocal communication. A dissonance in this alignment can cause discomfort during interactions, a phenomenon known as the "uncanny valley". The goal of this project is to synchronise a robot’s verbal communication style with its physical appearance. This will be achieved by developing a system in which 2D virtual robots provide responses that align with their appearance and reflect the valence and perception designed by real humans, thereby improving the comfort and effectiveness of human-robot interaction.

Project leader: Tatjana Nazir (Scalab)

The project aims to restitute the textile, sound, and food environment of the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520), a lost heritage site of the Hauts-de-France region, built for the meeting of the French and English courts between Guînes and Ardres. While this event is well-known in diplomatic history, its material culture remains less understood. Banquets, music, and dance animated the receptions that the sovereigns regularly hosted. While Queen Claude of France received Henry VIII and his entourage in Ardres, Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England, received François I^st along with 400 French ladies and gentlemen in Guînes. Once restituted, the textile decor, furniture, and tableware of the Banqueting Hall and the royal banquet chamber, as well as the dishes served, will be used to evoke the activities specific to these spaces. The project will integrate both the musical environment that rhythmically accompanied meals and dances, and the ambient sounds resulting from the banquets and service (dishes clinking, announcements, movements of guests). The goal is to create an immersive visitor experience through these interconnected spaces.

Discover the digital and sound restitution in video!

Project leader: Isabelle Parésys (Hartis)

It is Wednesday, 12 June 1448, on Lille’s market square, in the heart of a lively, colourful, and noisy medieval city. The crowd bustles between the market stalls covered in colourful fabrics. The cries of merchants hailing customers blend with the sounds of animals and the heavy wheels of carts rolling over the sandstone paving stones. The ringing of bells reminds us of the religious celebrations of the morning. Suddenly, our attention is drawn by the sound of a trumpet from the échevinal hall, the seat of urban authority. People gather in the shadow of the belfry, keeping an eye on the clock, to listen to the town crier’s announcement from the bretesche, a balcony suspended from the façade...

We are in the 21st century, walking between the Grand’Place and the theatre square. Of the medieval market, only 140 paving stones remain, subtly reminding today’s passers-by of a vanished past.

The INSULA project proposes a digital visual and sound restitution of Lille’s market square during the day of Wednesday, 12 June 1448. Based on archives, archaeological sources, and extensive analytical work, it will now be possible to understand this space in terms of both its materiality and its practices.

Discover the INSULA project website.

Project leader: Pauline Triplet (Hartis)

This project is part of the theory of embodied cognition, which highlights the links between perception, action, and cognition. It focuses on studying the brain mechanisms (neurophysiological substrates) and the effects of affordances (action possibilities offered by the environment) on cognitive functioning. The goal is to understand why certain situations, because they suggest actions, particularly capture our attention at the perceptual level.

Project leader: Yannick Wamain (Scalab)

This project aims to recreate life in 18^th-century Lille through a video game. Thanks to random event generation (current events, economy, politics) and diverse AI, each game will offer a unique experience, with responsive characters and multi-sensory immersion. A prototype will be developed in Unreal Engine with the support of development services.

Discover a preview of the game with the 3D reconstruction of Lille’s old stock exchange.

Project leader: Nicolas Wicker (Paul Painlevé)

Click here to discover the video of the project.

Click here to discover the video of the project

Click here to discover the video of the project

Conference "Exhibiting and Self-Exposure in 1874, or the Modeling of Mr. Whistler's Exhibition as a Means of Evaluating the Coherence Between Aesthetic Principles and the 'Implementation' of a Pioneering Exhibition?" (Musée d'Orsay Auditorium)
Click here to see the video of the conference.
Click here to see the 3D tour of the Whistler exhibition in London in 1874