For the lazy in us all... Or I guess for those that can't travel. Pretty neat idea.

http://www.googleartproject.com/

You can browse art museums from all over the world.

2/1/2011 11:06:34 AM

pretty awesome IMO

2/1/2011 11:16:23 AM

holy fuck. google just needs to stop. they have a monopoly on mind blowing shit.

2/1/2011 11:30:25 AM

awesome! thanks

2/1/2011 11:35:40 AM

Awesome idea... Although I like to be able to see the detail in a painting, and this really doesn't have the definition for that.

Also, the "street view" interface is a little clunky for a truly immersing experience. Something like a WASD keyboard and mouse control setup would be cool.

Will definitely be checking out a lot of these museums though

[Edited on February 1, 2011 at 11:48 AM. Reason : W]

2/1/2011 11:45:20 AM

Quote :

"Although I like to be able to see the detail in a painting, and this really doesn't have the definition for that."

Some of them have A TON of detail. Not really sure why there is such a range.

WASD would be neat, but that would be a lot of data and you would still be on rails.

2/1/2011 12:05:53 PM

^^you have to switch from street view to media view to get the detail. Only available for select drawings with a "+" sign near them. I imagine they will be adding more, similar to how google maps added detail to more and more areas over time

2/1/2011 12:39:38 PM

Unless they are 3d laser scanning the paintings and displaying them with accurate materials and environment mapping, this is pretty lame. I used to not know or care so much about art, but being engaged to a painter I've learned that very little of a painting gets captured through photography.

I kinda wish I was still ignant/oblivious to it all because then I'd probably think this was amazing

2/1/2011 2:46:24 PM

I don't think the museum staff thinks very highly of your painter fiance bringing in her lasers to look at paintings

2/1/2011 3:15:15 PM

^^ This isn't meant to replace trips to a museum

No one goes on a Street View vacation

[Edited on February 1, 2011 at 4:17 PM. Reason : If Microsoft were doing this you'd have jizzed your pants]

2/1/2011 4:16:51 PM

^Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea. But I was frustrated as fuck after trying it for 5 minutes. It's impossible to move from room to room via the on-screen controls, and only a tiny (and seemingly random) percentage of the works are viewable in detail. And I kept getting bumped outside to the street view with no way to get back in .

As it stands, the "view artwork" option is awesome. The "browse museum" option needs to be put back on the shelf for a while.

2/1/2011 10:37:31 PM

That way when we riot and tear junk up we have a good digital record.

2/1/2011 10:40:35 PM

Quote :

"Unless they are 3d laser scanning the paintings and displaying them with accurate materials and environment mapping, this is pretty lame. I used to not know or care so much about art, but being engaged to a painter I've learned that very little of a painting gets captured through photography."

So something like this:

http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/27/ultra-sharp-3d-outdoor-and-indoor-maps-for-mobile-and-home-video/

2/2/2011 1:04:45 PM

^Yeah. The technology has been around for several years. It's just balls expensive and not nearly as fast to capture and assimilate as photography is.

2/3/2011 5:57:25 PM

I'm still waiting to see google streets integration into a game type engine where you can walk, drive, or fly through the environment. Possibly get some live video feeds thrown in there and cars/people based upon population and time of day.

2/4/2011 9:46:03 AM

There's a windows phone Crackdown game that does this with Bing maps (though only overhead view). Its only a matter of time for someone to do it in 3d.

2/4/2011 9:48:18 PM