Google offers virtual tours of the world's top art museums
Baku, February 10 (AZERTAC). Now, Google is using its Street View technology to help us view art from a new perspective.
By capturing paintings in a super-high resolution of between 7 billion and 14 billion pixels, the internet giant lets users on its new Google Art Project website get so close, they can see the texture and intensity of single brush strokes.
The site allows users to view art from 17 museums around the world, including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Tate Britain in London. In total, users can explore 486 artworks online -- all in greater detail than is often visible to the naked eye.
The technology, which allows people to interact with art in a new way, has created a stir within the art industry.
It`s "very exciting," said Dr. Susan Foister, director of collections at the National Gallery in London, one of the museums involved in the project.
The ease and speed with which you can zoom into a painting ... as if it was created in front of your eyes is something that no one has had the chance to experience before now," she said.
The Art Project is the work of a group of Google employees drawn together by their love of art. At Google, this is known as a 20% project -- engineers are encouraged to dedicate 20% of their work time to projects outside their job descriptions.
Amit Sood is the head of the project, which has now become his full-time job. He hopes the Google Art Project will entice people to visit these museums -- as well as enrich the lives of those who cannot afford to do so.
"When I was in India, growing up in Bombay, I never got a chance to go to museums, to explore these artworks," he said. "I always just read about it. I just read about Van Gogh, I couldntt actually go to the Van Gogh Museum (in the Netherlands). Now I can."
The project`s features include:
• One piece of art from each of the 17 museums rendered in high definition that Google says will give site visitors a real-world quality look at it.
• A Street View feature that lets viewers take a 360-degree virtual look into selected galleries. Users can click from a view of an entire gallery to a close-up look at one of the pieces inside it.
• A "create your own collection" feature that lets users select particular views of the artwork included and assemble their own virtual galleries.
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