The Chronospédia project

Truths and lies

(French version)

Warning: this site is not affiliated with any employer, and is solely made as an independent researcher. It contains constructive criticism and does not try in any way to be disparaging. To restore the truth is not to disparage, it is the duty of the researcher.

Beavers make beautiful dams, but destroy forests.

The Chronospédia project of F. Simon-Fustier et K. Protassov is a project developed on the basis of a tower clock 3D modelling activity conducted since about 2012 by the workshop of Mr. Simon-Fustier in a Lyon suburb, and declined through the modelling of the horizontal clock in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, of the Vaux-le-Vicomte castle tower clock, of the electromechanical clock in the city hall in Cluses, of the large carillon clocks in the Mafra palace and a few others.

After 2020, this project was expanded under the impulsion of K. Protassov and it now has the ambition to save the horological know-how, essentially regarding clocks, by the use of 3D, but also through the integration of other types of data.

However, the primary motivation of the project is not the horological heritage, nor research on that heritage, given that the leaders of the project have never conducted any systematic works of horological inventory, nor have they published any research works. The horological heritage and 3D are rather part of an expansion strategy and are above all part of a business model.

Given that I have followed the project since 2015, I have come to adopt a quite critical position towards it, in particular because of the dangers it represents for the true priorities of horological heritage, and because the authors of the project have very little hindsight in 3D.

To summarize in a few words the considerable danger that Chronospédia represents:

The project is not open and the 3D models are not accessible and perhaps never will be.
There is no scientific supervision, no certification of the models, no way to verify the work done by the project.
The project has done absolutely nothing to safeguard horological know-how, no archive of clocks, no restoration report, not even technical documentation of a clock restored by the project has been put online.
The focus on 3D means that the entire inventory of horological heritage will be neglected and that this heritage, already in great danger (the French National Heritage Administration does nothing for it), will deteriorate even further.
The achievements of the Chronospédia project do not include any researchers in technical horology. There are none in the steering committee. As a result, there is no guarantee of scientific quality in this project and no serious researcher will use the models of the project, or even the unsourced and unjustified "recipes" given on the site. Some amateurs or museums may find it interesting, but not someone who does serious research work.
Furthermore, 3D is approached in a simplistic way, the project making one believe in a 3D expertise, when in fact this expertise is only a basic experience of a handful of people of software such as SolidWorks. 3D is much more than that!
The project is also based on fallacious rhetoric, and in particular on inaccurate assertions about the first 3D achievements for clocks, which do not come from Chronospédia at all (and nor from me).
Finally, the project does not take into account the needs of researchers at all and acts as if it concentrated all the research knowledge. However, the authors of Chronospédia have no publications to their credit in horology, apart from an (anonymous) presentation of the project in the French AFAHA journal of clock and watch amateurs. In particular, they have never published the slightest technical description of a clock.

One of the consequences of the previous observations is that the work of Chronospédia is not sustainable and in particular that the different models will one day have to be redone, in order to make them truly open and to submit them to the criticism of the scientific community.

For more in-depth analyses, I refer to the following documents, some of which are in French:

In addition to the previous analyses about the context of the use of 3D by Chronospédia, which is not a novelty, one can also read the following studies or documents:

The contents of this page is frequently updated.

D. Roegel

Last change: 17 September 2024.