
Sistine Chapel - z0a
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html
======
jacquesm
Very nice. In fact, almost nicer than being there (though you should do that
anyway if you get the chance). Because now you can experience the details for
as long as you want without a hundred other people around you who are just as
annoyed at you as you are at them.

I get it that a tourist complaining about tourist attractions being too
crowded is total hypocrisy on my part. But at the same time what I wouldn't
give to be able to stand in that chapel for as long as I wanted just to look,
all by myself. And now I can. We live in amazing times.

Be sure to look 'up' and use the zoom feature.

The only improvement I can think of is a 'link' icon that you can use to cut-
and-paste a certain viewpoint + zoom so that you can show others specific
details, and two more viewpoints at the end and the beginning (so you don't
lose the corners due to distortion).

~~~
Locke1689
Having tried the Oculus Rift, the potential to experience this would be
incredible. Although there's nothing quite like just sitting on a worn stone
bench alone in a cathedral, just the chill air around you.

It often makes me wish for a non-religious religion -- just a refuge of
tranquility.

~~~
jacquesm
Mankind has made the most incredible art inspired by religion. Along the same
lines, Bach's Chorales and in fact quite a bit of his other work.

Try this, if you feel like some really nice classical music:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3Upv8DuRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3Upv8DuRQ)

~~~
dredmorbius
Don't make that attribution error of associating the patron with the artist.

Yes, religion was the primary patron of visual, sculptural, and musical arts
for much of the period from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. But it
wasn't the only.

And you'll find beautiful works among the secularist of the Classical and
Romantic periods, say, the Pre-Raphaelites. Of whom neither the artists,
models, nor subject are generally highly religious in nature.

~~~
cgore
Bach was deeply religious, and not just because of some lap-dog sense of
"that's who's paying the bills." He signed most of his works as "SDG", short
for "Soli Deo Gloria", which roughly translates as "to God alone belongs all
glory. His meaning being that any ability Bach thought he had was solely just
God showing off: Bach made beautiful music, but God made Bach, and he knew it.

~~~
EzGraphs
That is a great quote. I used it in the dedication section of a book I wrote
recently. Bach is fascinating on many levels - lots of C.S. types quickly
appreciate the structure/counterpoint in all of his instrumental music. But
because so much of his music was written for a worship context, a whole
additional dimension can be seen where he uses musical devices to comment on
or support words being sung.

~~~
Myrmornis
_lots of C.S. types quickly appreciate the structure /counterpoint in all of
his instrumental music_

What on Earth does that mean?

~~~
prutschman
You can read that as "interesting patterns" for an approximate idea of what it
means.

~~~
Myrmornis
No, I wasn't asking to be patronized. If I want to know what counterpoint is
I'll look it up. I'm asking what on earth it has to do with computer science.
Sure there's the Hofstadter book but with no explanation this comes off as
merely pretentious. Do resist the temptation to patronize and mansplain
though; I know it is one if the things we as a profession excel at.

~~~
prutschman
I wasn't trying to be patronizing.

Clearly we both know you can look up "counterpoint" if you want to, so I read
into your post you were a tiny bit interested but not so interested as to
bother looking it up.

I'd hoped the shorthand would give you enough additional idea that you could
decide whether doing so was worth it for you, the link between interesting
patterns and computer science being hopefully obvious.

------
nitrogen
Meta comment about the panorama interface:

The click+drag view control feels inverted to me. I'm curious whether I'm in
the minority, though. For FPS games on PC I use normal mouse, but for console
FPS games I use inverted joystick.

~~~
nandhp
Yes, it feels inverted to me too.

You know who's responsible for that? Google Maps (specifically Street View).
There used to be a bunch of different 360° Java applets and QuickTime VR
embeds that did it this way; now they all feel backwards.

------
frik
Saint Peters VR-Tour:

[http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/M...](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/Media/VR/St_Peter_Altar/index.html)

more Saint Peter VR-Tours:
[http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/i...](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-
en.html)

more Vatican VR-Tours:
[http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html)

    
    
      Special thanks to Villanova University in Pennsylvania (USA)
      for its contribution to the realization of the Virtual 
      Reality Tour of the Sistine Chapel
    

\--
[http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm](http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm)

The Sistine Chapel HTML file contains some commented text:

    
    
      Photography: Chad Fahs & Paul Wilson, Villanova Department of Communication
      Stitching & Image Correction: Chad Fahs & Paul Wilson
      iOS conversion of the entire site is done courtesy of
      the Villanova Center of Excellence in Enterprise Technology
      and the Villanova Computer Science Department
      contact: Frank.Klassner@villanova.edu
    

Please add "(2010)" to the headline (see copyright on the chapel floor)

~~~
jacquesm
> Please add "(2010)" to the headline (see copyright on the chapel floor)

I think (1508) would be more appropriate.

------
80
For more renaissance goodness check out this site on the Ghent Altarpiece -
zooms so far in that you can see between the paint cracks:

[http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/#home/sub=altarpiece](http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/#home/sub=altarpiece)

~~~
okbake
Thats awesome. Any idea whats going on with the X-ray versions of Adam and
Eve? There seems to be things going on that arn't visible in the other views.
Maybe its where they painted over another painting?

------
Heliosmaster
For the soundtrack:
[http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/music/Sist...](http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/music/Sistine.mp3)

(from the source: Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli - 5. BenedictusTP1(Simon
Preston: Westminster Abbey ChoirTCM"Giovanni Pierluigi Da
PalestrinaTAL6Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli - Allegri: Miserere)

------
bobbles
When I was in the Sistine Chapel a couple of years ago, someone opened that
big black door at the back of the hall (between the two wooden walls).

This was not the tourist exit, and inside there were huge beautiful golden
hallways with exquisite paintings all around.

Does anyone know if this part of the chapel is visible or recorded anywhere?

~~~
christiangenco
From my high school AP Art History class, I believe that door is where the
priest would enter. I vaguely remember something about a controversy when it
was revealed that Michelangelo put the depiction of hell in the lower right
(directly above the door) with the tormented characters pointing at it.

For the life of me I can't find verification of this online, though, so
hopefully Mr. J (my APAH teacher) wasn't just making it up.

Edit: Ahh wait, I think you were talking about a different door. Mine is a
smaller black door in the lower right of The Last Judgement.

------
JunkDNA
This is one of those cases where (having not used one) I sincerely hope the
Oculus Rift can bring something more to the experience compared to what we
have now.

What you can't get from your computer screen is the _scale_ of it all. You can
intellectually get it by looking around at reference points in the image, but
you can't feel it the way you can when you are there.

This would be especially true if one had a similar view of St. Peter's.
There's almost no way to convey the sheer enormity of it without actually
physically being there. That's one of the things I remember the most from my
visit: that feeling of being so tiny inside this massive, ornate indoor space
that is so big, there's a haze when you look from end to end.

~~~
AJ007
The software running this Sistine Chapel panorama supports the Rift:
[http://krpano.com/stereo3d/#top](http://krpano.com/stereo3d/#top)

You just need to take a two image panorama photo to begin with.

I've seen a few 3D 360 videos in my Oculus Rift. There is little doubt that in
the future instead of shooting 2D photos we will be capture 3D 360 degree
video with geometry data. Imagine strapping on the headset and seeing yourself
as a toddler taking your first steps. Pretty wild stuff.

------
JonnieCache
I saw a thing on TV once where some religious historian lady was pointing out
how the robe enclosing god as he reaches out to adam resembles the human brain
in cross section. She speculated that Michelangelo may have been leaving a
clue as to what he really thought of his employers, based on his attendance at
banned human dissections around that time.

(It was a serious programme about art history BTW, not some conspiracy
nonsense. Wish I could remember the name.)

~~~
jacquesm
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2010/05/27/mi...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2010/05/27/michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-sistine-chapel-a-
juxtaposition-of-god-and-the-human-brain/)

~~~
JonnieCache
The plot thickens...

------
shriphani
Excerpt from "When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel" by
Michelangelo:

    
    
      My painting is dead.
      Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor. 
      I am not in the right place—I am not a painter
    

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2010/01/labor_pains....](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2010/01/labor_pains.html)

~~~
atmosx
incredible...

------
sheltgor
Having never had the opportunity to actually see this in person, yet seeing
god knows how many prints, its fascinating to see the whole room in
perspective and just how monumental of an artistic achievement this was. Lots
of components I'd never seen that had me starting for minutes. Only thing I
wish was that there was a way to zoom.

~~~
staz
You can actually zoom with the button on the bottom left (or with ctrl/shift).
Just too bad there is not other PoV

~~~
eli
'A' and 'Z' buttons work too

------
aashaykumar92
Very cool. This got me thinking: there are many tourist sites where people
aren't allowed to go anymore because of safety/security issues. It would be
awesome if the site coordinators (or whoever makes executive decisions on such
things) would make pages like this one available on their websites for their
respective tourist attractions. And in more POVs.

------
j2kun
Having never visited, I did not realize until how high the density of nudity
per square meter was.

~~~
tormeh
There are uncovered breasts! Penises! Can't find any vulvas unfortunately.
It's funny to think that they would have to censor this on American television
because of the religious right.

Another way to think of it: Miley Cyrus is actually more covered than many of
the characters in the Sistine Chapel.

~~~
WoodenChair
"It's funny to think that they would have to censor this on American
television because of the religious right."

Re: What would fit on American television today.

Pretty specious argument. Just because something was appropriate in the 1400s,
doesn't mean we have to find it appropriate today. We also don't find hanging
people in public squares appropriate anymore, or a million other things...

There are arguments to be made in favor of allowing more nudity on television.
"They used to do it back in the day" is not one of the good ones.

~~~
jedberg
I think OP was commenting on the irony that the reason given for no nudity on
tv is a religious reason from the same religion that puts naked people in one
of their most sacred places.

~~~
tormeh
Exactly.

------
araes
Anyone have the technical info on how this was done and put together? Looking
at other pages, it appears this was created by Villanova University in
Pennsylvania
([http://www1.villanova.edu/main.html](http://www1.villanova.edu/main.html))
for the Vatican, and they appear to have several folks actively publishing in
photogrammetry journals. It looks like it was done with some very high quality
photogrammetry
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry)),
and I'd be interested to see what program they used, and if its available, as
my agency could probably find some uses for it.

~~~
cflee
For those who haven't found the other pages: there are a total of 8 basilicas
and chapels that have been rendered in this fashion.

[http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html)
(English page)

------
klunger
When I was a kid, my parents took me to Disney World. It was a long time ago,
childhood amnesia and so on, so forgive the fuzzy details here... But
basically, they had a very early version of virtual reality (a headset a la
Oculus Rift). They chose the same imagery, so I was immersed in the Sistine
Chapel. I remember being deeply impressed at the time (although I was a kid,
so who knows how great it actually was). Regardless, I have never been to
Italy and have wanted to go ever since that experience.

------
sytelus
You know what would be cool? If I can click on those painting and read story
underlying each of them. I can read that all day long.

~~~
jacquesm
Second best, scroll down to 'Content':

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

and

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Sis...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling_diagram_overlay_composite.png/1600px-
Sistine_Chapel_ceiling_diagram_overlay_composite.png)

------
sergiotapia
The moneyshot: [http://imgur.com/aiBLxXD](http://imgur.com/aiBLxXD)

Absolutely breathtaking!

------
qq66
Really awesome stuff. I wonder why they chose this level of maximum resolution
-- from the Gigapixel images it's clear that they could support zooming into
the individual paint cracks, although with the publicity that this is getting,
that might have incurred extreme bandwidth costs.

------
bostonpete
This is an extreme violation of the Chapel's no photography rule. I hope they
catch whoever did this.

~~~
radley
It's the Vatican's own web site...

~~~
adambenayoun
I always wondered why there's a no photography rule. Is it because of
copyright or because it's a sacred site? (Although the mere fact that we're
watching a 360 photo on the site means that it's probably copyright).

~~~
jacquesm
Copyright was a good chunk of the reason, but there is a much better one: lots
of flashing from cameras will fade the pigments just like sunlight fades
outdoor advertising.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
There's a better one still IMO. It's a place of worship, you're supposed to
look at the images and ponder your relationship with, and position before, the
Almighty Creator. If you're messing around with your camera, or others are,
then you're invariably far to distracted to meditate on higher things.

~~~
gnaritas
That's a terrible reason, it's a tourist attraction, not a place of
worship;even if it still were many don't care about your superstitions and
don't need or want your superstitions imposed upon them. We don't all walk
around with delusions of a creator in our minds.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _not a place of worship_ //

Your contention is that the Sistine Chapel¹ is not a place dedicated by
Christians to the glorification of God? Like it's not, say, a chapel? And they
don't have art work depicting the lives of important people in the Christian
faith, or imagery that Christians might use as part of their worship.

When the Sistine Chapel choir sings the Miserere, say, to assembled members of
the Roman Catholic church, you don't think that maybe, just maybe that means
that the people who own the building consider it to be - perhaps - just a tiny
bit of a building for religious devotion ... now what's that word, oh yeah,
perhaps they consider it to be a _chapel_.

Would you go to a Mosque, perhaps the Great Mosque in Istanbul, and say
"people shouldn't be imposing their religion on me, like, just because I came
to a mosque".

"Why should I respect your beliefs as a Christian when I choose to visit a
Christian chapel" is that really your considered opinion?

TBH if it weren't for your long standing on this site I'd have dismissed your
comment as an obvious troll.

Now if I go picking apart your need to hide from God, your desire to run from
the truth, your imposition of your beliefs on others in an affront to the
truth ... I'm guessing you're going to consider that this isn't really the
appropriate forum for such a conversation, that I'm being crass and troll-
like, no? Perhaps you'll start by telling me you're only interested in the
truth despite your "not a place of worship" claim being the most obvious of
falsehoods and putting the lie to such a notion ...

\- - -

¹ -
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUQyLXKdF_M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUQyLXKdF_M)
Roman Catholic mass being celebrated in the Sistine Chapel, March 2013.

~~~
lmm
> Your contention is that the Sistine Chapel¹ is not a place dedicated by
> Christians to the glorification of God? Like it's not, say, a chapel?

They don't use it as one, at least most of the time. There are too many people
passing through for it to be a place of worship or reflection. Once you start
selling entry to tourists you lose the right to demand they do something other
than tourism, IMO.

If they really wanted to keep it as a place of worship they'd close it to the
unbaptized and allow free entry (as is done with the Kaaba IIRC). Of course,
that would be much less profitable.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Just on a point of fact, you can worship/reflect/meditate anywhere, of course.
It's like being at a pop concert in some ways, the imagery was commissioned
with a purpose - which at least in part was to aid worship of God - if
everyone is waving cameras around that inhibits that purpose in a way which is
easily remedied. Cutting back to the thread start I was offering _a_ reason to
prohibit photography in the Sistine Chapel that I felt was better than some
others, that's all.

Second point: The Kaaba, in Mecca is only accessible to Muslims. There are
Umrah/Hajj costs to pay to get anywhere near the Kaaba.

------
zz1
Am I the only one finding it ironic that they used (Adobe) Flash to show the
chapel to the whole world, when tourists can't use (camera) flash to show it
to their close friends?

Well, just jacquesm, I simpathize with the stewards: "please, no flash" :(

~~~
SG-
i just find it ironic they used flash since there's webgl solutions now for
this that would work on mobile devices a lot better.

~~~
zz1
At the same time you have to consider that this isn't new, as already pointed
out.

------
chrismcb
From an American copyright point of view... Is this copyrightable? It is a
reproduction of a work of art that is no longer under copyright. The image
itself offers no creativity, other than as a reproduction.

------
CognitiveLens
other 360° views:
[http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html)

------
logn
This is amazing. The paintings make a lot more sense seeing them in context.

Also, who knew, the Vatican knows how to hire good software engineers. I guess
they did hire Michelangelo too though.

------
trhway
it may be nitpicking, yet - the projection seems strange at the borders of the
viewport. And there are a lot of 3d TVs/monitors out there - could have done a
3d version :)

------
csense
Needs WASD to move, and a more "standard" mouselook.

~~~
lockes5hadow
For real. WASD would be a huge improvement.

------
adambenayoun
Funny - I just got back from Rome 2 days ago and was in the Vatican - imagine
the surprise when I saw this on top of of Hacker News.

The experience of being in the sistine chapel is nice but a bit spoiled by the
fact that there are hundreds of tourists in the chapel as well and Italian
guards are pushing you to move and be in the center (Often yelling at tourist
who aren't moving fast enough and throwing out of the chapel anyone trying to
take a picture).

~~~
switch007
I was there last week but we did the evening tour (8pm). Not very crowded at
all - I had time to sit on the benches and stand as long as I liked in the
centre.

The evening tours are seasonal I believe.

------
pithon
I've been looking for Waldo for hours now. No luck.

------
rail2rail
I was luck enough to score an after hours (nightime) guided tour of the
Basilica (including this chapel) several years ago. We nearly had the entire
place to ourselves and saw rooms that were kept off the general tour. We saw
stone that is now extinct and art that melted my face. We lingered so long the
guards chased us out. There are no words for how beautiful this place is.

------
gilgoomesh
For a room where you spent the whole time looking up... that gimbal lock is
really annoying.

Quaternions, please?

------
sirdogealot
Now if they could only add in bing-like hyperlinks to every depictable image
in there so I could actually know what I'm looking at!

Very, very beautiful site though and wonderfully fresh idea coming from such
an arcane institution. I like it a lot.

------
pshin45
Hah, got me thinking maybe PG's pre-Viaweb startup idea to put art galleries
on the Web was just too far ahead of its time[1].

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html](http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html)

~~~
pjbrunet
VRML was a big deal back in 1994. At least it was supposed to be ;-)

~~~
riffraff
I'm 90% sure the vatican did this basilicas 3D browser in VRML more than a
decade ago but I can't seem to find any proof on archive.org :)

------
Walkman
The performance of this is crazy good. I clicked from mobile and the scrolling
was very fast and smooth, which is strange because the desktop version is
flash I think :O

------
Shivetya
I would hope that museums across the world along with locations like this
would have this technology applied. I would not mind small fees to use on
private collections.

------
Xcelerate
Cool! Although it kind of stutters a little bit as I move around (very very
minimally but just enough to break the flow). MBPR 2012, Chrome.

------
atriix
Too bad, what ever it is I'm not gonna be able to se it. ERROR: "Adobe Flash
Player 9/10 or higher needed"

------
brianzelip
What role do you think the `Sistine-Chapel.xml` file, included in the html
source's `embedpano` script, plays?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Looks to control display according to device type and music playing.

------
rrradical
This game has good graphics, but I'm not really into the art style. They
should get a new texture artist.

------
lifeisstillgood
on a thread dominated by insightful comments on religion history and art I
hate to do this but ... I can't get pinch to zoom to get in close on the
iPhone - is the image only "as seen from ground level" or can you really get
up close if using a PC?

------
james33
Just wait until they add VR support!

------
Oculus
Has the actual Chapel aged so well or have the images been reworked to give
show more color?

~~~
jedberg
They recently had a multi-year restoration.

Before that it was almost completely black from soot and smoke.

~~~
pjbrunet
Relatively recently ;-)

According to Google "The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and in particular the
ceiling and accompanying lunettes by Michelangelo have been subject to a
number of restorations, the most recent taking place between 1980 and 1994."

------
weinzierl
I know that Paul Debevec worked in the Sistine Chapel. Is this his work?

------
SimeVidas
I'd have preferred WebGL over Flash.

------
pinkskip
I love the internet and this is why!

------
l33tbro
Wow - though music a bit too much.

~~~
coldcode
Palestrina. You couldn't get more appropriate music for the times this was
painted. I think a couple decades after.

~~~
l33tbro
Not saying the music choice is inappropriate - I think it fits the piece
perfectly. But - IMO - art spectatorship should be sober and limited only to
elments the artist intended. So any use of extra music to enhance my
experience feels redundant. But hey, that's why we have the mute button :D

------
Thiz
Can't admire.

I am flash impaired.

------
ulfw
Super cool!

------
marcfawzi
I went from Seventy Two to Sisty Four (sic) karma points all because of this
stupid chapel. Get over your religious nostalgia and get back to real tech
news... Thanks.

------
marcfawzi
There's nothing technically novel about this. It's also kind of offensive
given the mass genocide committed in the name of religion. Hacker News turning
to Christian News.

~~~
hdyeh683
The biggest genocides were committed by these atheist regimes -

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

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

Here's one excerpt, "Raised in the Georgian Orthodox faith, Stalin became an
atheist. He followed the position that religion was an opiate that needed to
be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government
promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-
religious propaganda, the anti-religious work of public institutions (Society
of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious
believers. By the late 1930s, it had become dangerous to be publicly
associated with religion.[97]"

~~~
marcfawzi
That hardly obfuscates the fact that people WERE mass murdered in the name of
religion.

~~~
visarga
So, people were mass murdered in the name of both theism and atheism. What
does that mean?

------
afonsopraca
old stuff

------
opinali
I like how God has these really buff arms... He must bench-press at least
225lb.

------
soheil
that's gay!

------
grimmdude
Looks like flash is still good for something.

------
mariuolo
Sixteen chapel? What about the other fifteen?;)

------
nthitz
If you look straight down "Copyright Musei Vaticani". Is that really on the
floor at the Sistine Chapel or just for this web version?

~~~
ceejayoz
They probably replaced the camera tripod with that.

------
audiodude
Just remember: whatever piece of code you're working on right now; whatever
tiny feature on a tiny website you're trying to implement; that is your
Sistine Chapel.

~~~
duncanawoods
How true - a death march project of absurd scope driven by the ego of a
tyrannical leader forcing you to use a technology you have barely any
experience of, or interest in, taking you away from your real passion and
expertise under threat of destitution.

You slave away day in day out through illness, injury and 1000 anxieties but,
as someone once said... artists ship :)

