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Sistine Chapel
- sheltgor 12y agoHaving 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.
- ArcticCelt 12y ago>Only thing I wish was that there was a way to zoom Use the scroll wheel on your mouse.
- sheltgor 12y agoThat... actually works. I was using the touchpad on my laptop and it wasn't responding so I assumed it could zoom. Just tried it with my mouse and it works perfect.
- staz 12y agoYou can actually zoom with the button on the bottom left (or with ctrl/shift). Just too bad there is not other PoV
- eli 12y ago'A' and 'Z' buttons work too
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jowiar 12y agoThe whole building is like that - the walls and ceilings of the Vatican museum are one of the finest art collections on the planet, let alone the things that are hanging on the walls. It's worth an experience - the potential of something like the Oculus to mass-produce the experience of being there is fantastic.
- l33tbro 12y agoWow - though music a bit too much.
- coldcode 12y agoPalestrina. You couldn't get more appropriate music for the times this was painted. I think a couple decades after.
- l33tbro 12y agoNot 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
- afonsopraca 12y agoold stuff
- jacquesm 12y agoVery 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).
- tvon 12y agoReminds me of this enjoyable quote: > Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. - Yogi Bera
- Locke1689 12y agoHaving 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.
- soperj 12y agoI've gotten that feeling at the San Fran Aquarium. There are some benches where big fish can swim over head. Unbelievably peaceful and cool when there aren't a ton of kids running around(ie: get there early)
- jacquesm 12y agoMankind 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
- nitrogen 12y agoMeta 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.
- baddox 12y agoThe reason it feels inverted is because it's not "click and drag" in the normal sense (like Google Maps) where clicking and holding sets an anchor point, and moving the cursor moves the anchor point. This is more like a virtual joystick. Clicking and holding establishes the neutral point of the joystick, and the cursor position relative to the neutral point is the velocity vector of camera movement. It behaves the same as the right hand joystick in a console FPS like Halo with a traditional (non-inverted) control scheme.
- nandhp 12y agoYes, 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.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- acadien 12y agoJust FYI the keyboard controls are much easier to use (arrow keys + shift/control to zoom).
- lucb1e 12y agoFeels normal to me, though I'd expect the movement to stop when I stop moving my mouse (instead it continues till I release the mouse button), but I got used to it quickly enough...
- lostlogin 12y agoIt works beautifully on a touch screen. The only downside being that you can only zoom a very short distance. It is otherwise perfect on mobile.
- james33 12y agoJust wait until they add VR support!
- aashaykumar92 12y agoVery 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.
- shriphani 12y agoExcerpt 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.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2010/01/labor_pains....
- atmosx 12y agoincredible...
- nthitz 12y agoIf you look straight down "Copyright Musei Vaticani". Is that really on the floor at the Sistine Chapel or just for this web version?
- ceejayoz 12y agoThey probably replaced the camera tripod with that.
- j2kun 12y agoHaving never visited, I did not realize until how high the density of nudity per square meter was.
- tormeh 12y agoThere 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.
- salgernon 12y agoBush's attorney general would have it his way: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/valentine.asp http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/valentine.asp
- jacquesm 12y agoThere was in those days significant opposition to the way the work was executed, which led the artist to pull some pranks on some of his most active detractors.
- coldcode 12y agoThe back wall is full of faces that Michelangelo didn't like. I remember some guy added clothes to the painting later to try to make it less nude.
- swang 12y agoI believe if its "art" they don't need to censor it. See: http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/will-michelangelos-david-collapse-n95311 http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/will-michelangelos-david... At the very least, they don't do any close ups.
- WoodenChair 12y ago"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.
- 80 12y agoFor 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
- Geee 12y agoWow, that's center piece is incredible. I don't think it's humanly possible to paint something like that.
- okbake 12y agoThats 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?
- trhway 12y agoit 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 :)
- sergiotapia 12y agoThe moneyshot: http://imgur.com/aiBLxXD http://imgur.com/aiBLxXD Absolutely breathtaking!
- Heliosmaster 12y agoFor the soundtrack: http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/music/Sistine.mp3 http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/music/Sist... (from the source: Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli - 5. BenedictusTP1(Simon Preston: Westminster Abbey ChoirTCM"Giovanni Pierluigi Da PalestrinaTAL6Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli - Allegri: Miserere)
- JonnieCache 12y agoI 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 12y agohttp://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/05/27/michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-sistine-chapel-a-juxtaposition-of-god-and-the-human-brain/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/05/27/mi...
- JonnieCache 12y agoThe plot thickens...
- reledi 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam#Anatomical_theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam#Anatomical...
- bostonpete 12y agoThis is an extreme violation of the Chapel's no photography rule. I hope they catch whoever did this.
- radley 12y agoIt's the Vatican's own web site...
- jacquesm 12y agoI'm assuming you wrote that comment before your morning coffee...
- adambenayoun 12y agoI 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 12y agoCopyright 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.
- adambenayoun 12y agoThat makes sense
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoThere'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.
- audiodude 12y agoJust 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.
- jacquesm 12y agoI can't figure out if this is meant to inspire or to depress.
- duncanawoods 12y agoHow 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 :)
- adambenayoun 12y agoFunny - 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 12y agoI 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.
- JunkDNA 12y agoThis 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 12y agoThe 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.
- qq66 12y agoReally 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.
- klunger 12y agoWhen 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.
- zz1 12y agoAm 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" :(
- brianzelip 12y agoWhat role do you think the `Sistine-Chapel.xml` file, included in the html source's `embedpano` script, plays?
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoLooks to control display according to device type and music playing.
- araes 12y agoAnyone 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 12y agoFor 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)
- sytelus 12y agoYou 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 12y agoSecond 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/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling_diagram_overlay_composite.png/1600px-Sistine_Chapel_ceiling_diagram_overlay_composite.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Sis...
- weinzierl 12y agoI know that Paul Debevec worked in the Sistine Chapel. Is this his work?
- Xcelerate 12y agoCool! 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.
- ulfw 12y agoSuper cool!
- rrradical 12y agoThis game has good graphics, but I'm not really into the art style. They should get a new texture artist.
- l0stb0y 12y agoWell, the Sistine Chapel doesn't help dispel the idea that the Catholic church is the worlds largest group of homosexual males. I used to take offense to that suggestion but they have a point. Anyway, here come the down-votes.
- rail2rail 12y agoI 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.
- atriix 12y agoToo bad, what ever it is I'm not gonna be able to se it. ERROR: "Adobe Flash Player 9/10 or higher needed"
- grimmdude 12y agoLooks like flash is still good for something.
- csense 12y agoNeeds WASD to move, and a more "standard" mouselook.
- lockes5hadow 12y agoFor real. WASD would be a huge improvement.
- bobbles 12y agoWhen 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 12y agoFrom 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.
- pshin45 12y agoHah, 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
- chrismcb 12y agoFrom 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 12y agoother 360° views: http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html
- pithon 12y agoI've been looking for Waldo for hours now. No luck.
- Oculus 12y agoHas the actual Chapel aged so well or have the images been reworked to give show more color?
- jedberg 12y agoThey recently had a multi-year restoration. Before that it was almost completely black from soot and smoke.
- pjbrunet 12y agoRelatively 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."
- mhartl 12y agoIt has been extensively restored: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Sistine_Chapel_frescoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_the_Sistine_Chap...
- marcfawzi 12y agoThere'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 12y agoThe 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 12y agoThat hardly obfuscates the fact that people WERE mass murdered in the name of religion.
- visarga 12y agoSo, people were mass murdered in the name of both theism and atheism. What does that mean?
- marcfawzi 12y agoJust as it's offensive to celebrate's Hitler's (or Bush's) artistic achievements, it's offensive to celebrate the works of any religion. But for some insane reason, religions get to be celebrated for their contribution to the arts and humanities despite having been the force behind many episodes of genocide. Humans are crazy in that way.
- logn 12y agoThis 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.
- gilgoomesh 12y agoFor a room where you spent the whole time looking up... that gimbal lock is really annoying. Quaternions, please?
- lifeisstillgood 12y agoon 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?
- mariuolo 12y agoSixteen chapel? What about the other fifteen?;)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sirdogealot 12y agoNow 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.
- frik 12y agoSaint Peters VR-Tour: http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/Media/VR/St_Peter_Altar/index.html http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/M... more Saint Peter VR-Tours: http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-en.html http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/i... 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 12y ago> Please add "(2010)" to the headline (see copyright on the chapel floor) I think (1508) would be more appropriate.
- soheil 12y agothat's gay!
- marcfawzi 12y agoI 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.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- pinkskip 12y agoI love the internet and this is why!
- Walkman 12y agoThe 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
- SimeVidas 12y agoI'd have preferred WebGL over Flash.
- Thiz 12y agoCan't admire. I am flash impaired.
- opinali 12y agoI like how God has these really buff arms... He must bench-press at least 225lb.
- Shivetya 12y agoI 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.