Google Engineers Gone Wild!
Google updated The Google Art Project and updated is an understatement. Google’s Search Engine and Account interface is nearly stark white using Arial as a primary font. The Google Art Project is presented in graphic European design style with gorgeous font styling. We haven’t seen anything this nice since the Bauhaus opened.
On April 3, 2012, Google announced a major expansion to the Art Project as it signed partnership agreements with 151 museums from 40 countries. Now, the platform features over 32,000 artworks from 46 museums, and the image acquisition process is underway at the remaining partner museums.
Not long ago to view fine art required either a trip to a good museum or good money plunked down on a coffee table book. Now, you can enjoy well designed and displayed art from around the world. Images are large, clear and with great color.
Navigate by artist, world location, collections, museums and specialty filters. The gallery is a visual experience for all ages. Tools are available to enlarge the art so details like paint stroke, layering and color are large and detailed and it’s fun to play with.
In the Art Project, each image has a digital pencil, if you click a gallery image, the image is sent to “My Galleries” page. From My Galleries you can name galleries and drag your “pinned” images into say watercolor, oil, Renoir, statues or named to your liking, but the real deal is the ability to enlarge any image right down to the cracks in the oil paint.
Some Development Insight
The real beauty from a development point of view is the unique JavaScript code with embedded html, tags and very unique text script templates. The resulting Google Art Project platform is a Java-based Google App Engine Web application, which exists on Google’s infrastructure.
Google leveraged its existing technology from Google Street View and Picasa and built a whole slew of new tools specifically for the Art Project. The Art Project team created an indoor version of a Google Street View camera on a trolley. Using GPS technology the team seamlessly placed the artwork scanned in the correct museum, gallery and room. Google also took selected artwork from each museum and captured an ultra-high resolution image with about 1,000 times more detail than an average digital camera.
By combining a great idea with the purpose of exposing great art to anyone with a computer is a highly commendable project. Google intended for this second-generation platform to be a global resource, the Art Project is now available in 18 different languages.
Visit the Google Art Project: http://www.googleartproject.com/
