Intel has art museum scanned

Thanks to interactive elements, a virtual museum visit could be enhanced with experiences that would not be possible in reality. A sensational project provides a prime example. The company Intel has prepared parts of the Smithsonian American Art Museum as a true-to-original duplicate for VR.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. contains one of the largest collections of American art. Intel SAAM VR recently immortalised the second floor of the east wing in VR in collaboration with other partners. The latest technologies such as a Lidar scanner and photogrammetry were used.

In order to explore how art can be experienced and learnt about virtually, interactive elements were added to three additional works.

You can find out more about the entire project in the short video from Intel:

Travelling by teleportation

For example, you can touch the bronze statue of August Saint-Gaudens - the wife of US historian Henry Adams, who committed suicide in 1885 - with the Vive controller to be teleported to the photorealistic duplicate of the cemetery where the original monument stands.

360 degree video

The second interactive artwork is a painting by Frederic Edwin Church completed in 1863. It shows a Nordic landscape with auroras and the ship of polar explorer Isaac Israel Hayes stuck in the ice. This work of art can also be touched with the Vive controller, which starts a high-resolution 360-degree video of a polar landscape.

Artist comments on work as a hologram

The third and final interactive artwork is entitled "Face in the Crows" and is a video installation by photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager. It consists of three video screens showing crowds of people at airports, cinemas and other public places. For the virtual museum visit, the artist was scanned in 3D and comments on her work in the form of a hologram.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum wanted to use the demo to find out how new technologies could enhance museum visits. Unfortunately, there are no plans to release the app.

Source: Vrodo