Seeing Paris

Seeing Paris offers a one-of-a-kind journey through 19th-century Paris, seamlessly blending historical and modern maps with immersive 3D gallery spaces that bring the city's past to life. This experience allows users to explore detailed interactive maps and cartographic depictions of key landmarks, including Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, and the Palace of Versailles, among others. Additionally, users can transition between historical and contemporary maps to visualize how the city has changed from one street corner to the next across 150+ years of the city's history, spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. And for a more intimate exploration of the city, one can delve into each point of interest to access an immersive gallery view showcasing historical street views of various landmarks and corners all throughout the city, offering a closer look at Paris as it once was. At the heart of this experience is the 1868 map of Paris by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, sourced from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. The development of the app was led by recent Stanford University graduate Umar Patel, an AI researcher and XR designer whose work bridges user experience design, AI transformation, and digital humanities, as part of a collaboration with the David Ramsey Map Center. The team also included collection specialist Niles Dorn who was involved with the georeferencing and geospatial scaling of the historical maps used within the experience. The broader project was helped organized by curator and historical cartographer Evan Thornberry.