
Google Cultural Institute - sytelus
http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute
======
dmix
I was looking at Museo Napoleonico and saw the Google camera in one of the
mirrors: [https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-
viewer/yAHftz...](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-
viewer/yAHftzZiPgkYuA?location=41.9015935%2C12.4722782%2C0.78%2CZHfFlFbt-
KLa_FNzAZUwrw&projectId=art-project)

It looks very HAL 9000:
[https://i.imgur.com/TsZ1Q9a.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TsZ1Q9a.jpg)

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jffry
I'm impressed by the resolution at which some of these paintings have been
scanned.

I'd love to hear more about this process - is it a custom scanning rig? A
Gigapan-style pan/tilt DSLR? I'm wondering how they would scan something like
the Wedding at Cana? [1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_at_Cana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_at_Cana)

~~~
acdha
According to the presenter at this year's Museums and the Web conference
they're using the bike / person-mount Google Street View system. Each partner
gets 1 gigapixel scan as a perk and can get more at apparently quite
reasonable rates.

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peterwwillis
It's kind of insane, but I live a block away from the Walters Art Museum, and
i've been inside three times, yet i'm spending more time reflecting on the
pieces from this website than at the museum itself.

[https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/the-
walt...](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/the-walters-art-
museum?projectId=art-project)

~~~
rpd9803
That's too bad, the artwork is really amazing in person.. and not even giving
the Walters the web traffic (instead, Google gets it).. A troubling Google Art
Project concern.

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netcraft
I found this site a few months back and was absolutely impressed. I hope to
one day have a 4k tv mounted to a wall and framed in my house with slide shows
from a custom curated set of art playing on repeat.

~~~
cscharenberg
I am building this exact thing, called ArtsMuse
([http://artsmuse.io](http://artsmuse.io)). It's early days yet: signing
artists and getting a beta-ready system built. I have the same vision as you:
using the screens in my house to show art instead of being a big black hole on
the wall.

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devindotcom
I love these, but I always have this compulsion to dig into the source and try
to find the giant asset itself, if it's accessible and not just tiled and
streamed in like a map. Some museums and collection sites have their source
images better obfuscated than others.

Anyone else have any luck, for example on getting the full-size pic from this
piece?

[http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-
col...](http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-colosseum-as-
seen-from-above/FAGaNw4vi613cg?projectId=art-project)

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scotth
This is amazing! Any thoughts on why Google did this?

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programminggeek
The name creeps me out.

~~~
EC1
Sounds like an institution the Asgard would have named.

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acdha
I love the concept but these days I mostly wonder how long it will last before
getting the Reader treatment and what that will mean for the partners who are
using it for their best-quality web presence.

~~~
vdaniuk
World is impermanent, the internet world magnifies this tenfold. Things will
get ever more transient.

Accept the impermanence.

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
>>Accept the impermanence.

You're talking extremes, which is a little funny considering the time scales
of all the links in the chain: artifact/art (millennia to centuries), museums
(centuries to decades), google inc (?).

~~~
rpd9803
It is a shame google is aiming at Institutions that don't have the resources
to know better than to trust them.. meanwhile their usage rights exists in
perpetuity.. not simply for duration of the project..

