Google Launches Street View Tech With Museums

Google’s Street View tech has made finding new places easier while supplying us with a steady stream of knowledge and expanding our urban barriers. Today, Google took the next step in location exploration by launching its streetview tech for museums.

The site, Google Art Project is exactly what you would expect from Google streetview but in a museum.

Eighteen months in the making, Google says it’s worked with 17 art museums including, Altes Nationalgalerie, The Freer Gallery of Art Smithsonian, National Gallery (London), The Frick Collection, Gemäldegalerie, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Museo Reina Sofia, Museo Thyseen – Bornemisza, Museum Kampa, Palace of Versailles, Rijksmuseum, The State Hermitage Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, Tate, Uffizi and Van Gogh Museum.

The images are great quality and it’s almost like being in a museum. While browsing one museum, I experienced a glitch and managed to end up in the street, it made for quite an interesting experience afterwards.

Google created a special trolley system to capture the full layout of each museum. What’s even more impressive is the camera. Quoting Google, the camera “enables the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond that possible with the naked eye.”

The images you see in Google Art Project are a higher resolution than what your eye is capable of discerning. Think of it as the Retina display on the iPhone.