Virtual tours of the best museums

How do you want a cultural life! .. Only something always interferes. And there is no money for a trip to Italy. And time - even on a trip to the Tretyakov Gallery. And the children are sitting in a row behind the tablets. Voproshay: so and the leaps and bounds of technology to you for what? There is a great way to join the beautiful, without taking anything strategically important from the chair!

Vatican, Sistine Chapel

  To get to this divine place is not easy, even if you get to Rome: the line snakes - kilometer long! And at home in front of the monitor you can see every detail, using the mouse and the three cherished buttons in the lower left corner.

Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

  126 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, archaeological and cultural artifacts - and do not need them to fly to Washington. Go from room to room on the arrows, close to the most interesting mammoths closely and look around by pressing the buttons.

Kremlin opening

  A virtual tour of the Kremlin opens and closed for tourists objects belonging to the Kremlin complex of the presidential residence. Do not forget to click on the sound: the text is read not by anyone, but by Batalov.

Hermitage Collection: High Resolution

  This museum is different in that it is easy for an inexperienced person to get lost in it. Yes, and really for the day unless you consider a couple of halls - and the head is spinning. Let's start with a workout. This collection contains 100 images, including paintings that are not in the Hermitage’s permanent collection. You can download in the resolution of 5441 × 4013, saying: “This is my size!”.

Uffizi Gallery

  Once in the famous palace in Florence with its inhuman collection of European fine art, you move along the corridors in the same way as on Yandex maps - and with a sinking heart you are looking for Botticelli.

Frick Collection

  Freak - in this case is not an eccentric, but a famous American industrialist. Although the eccentric too: such masterpieces bequeath the public museum! In the free days of the visit, queues of thirsty people line up at his mansion, and we can completely donate to explore his treasures at home.

Prado Museum Online Gallery

The Spaniards do not offer walking around the halls and turning their heads, but the picture you are interested in can be seen in very good resolution. And the collection of European art is notable for them.

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Online

  Here, too, instead of technical problems - great works. Search, click, open, bastard. Approaching, considering, hanging. On one van gogh you can meditate the day.

Virtual walks in the Russian Museum

  Through all the palaces, gardens and houses of Peter the Great, you can walk by the arrows - and read explanatory texts under the window of a virtual walk.

Reconstruction of the Tretyakov Gallery in 1898

  The reconstruction was carried out according to the photographs of Pavel Tretyakov. A diagram of the rooms on the right helps to walk around the XIX century to the zasluts from the XXI century - and the general view of the room is straight ahead. By which you can click, bringing each canvas. The site is loaded long and pompously, but still there is interesting.

Salvador Dali Museum (FL)

  Pictures of the great guru sura will be viewed directly in the interior - there is also an infa about them, if you click on the blymbochku. You can “walk” not only by the exposition, but also in all other rooms, but also around the museum.

Museum of Oriental Art (Chicago)

  For lovers of mysterious shards, precious coins with proud profiles, rusted harness and other ancient stuff. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Assyria, Persia and Nubia online.

Moscow City Museum

  If dear guests arrived to the dear capital on the day off of the museum of its history, this history can be studied at a computer, in a warm company, at home with Muscovite friends. I suppose they didn’t reach there either. Traffic jams, yes, we understand.

Virtual tour of the Moscow Planetarium

  According to the scheme, you can jump on all floors from zero to third, along icons that pop up along the way - in all halls. Consider the devices and other interesting objects and read about them info. Even in 4D cinema and cafes you can peek. It is a pity, the online equipment has not reached the treats yet.

Civil Aviation Museum

  Fans of airplanes can not only wander between them and look at them from different sides, but also “leave their mark”: there is such a fun feature on this tour. However, if you wish, you can erase your mark.

Skansen in Chernivtsi

  In the museum of folk history and architecture, you can virtually wander through the green natural expanse among the ancient huts and windmills, looking inward and looking at the interiors along the way.

During school years, excursions in museums were an integral part of the educational process. Nowadays, the situation has not changed much, with the exception that in an era of rapid development of the Internet, students and students have much more opportunities and can “visit” one or another landmark without leaving home.

A virtual tour of the world's museums opens up many educational opportunities. Now we can visit the most remote corners of the planet, which had not even dreamed of before. For example, we can go on a virtual tour of any famous museum. Let the virtual tour and is different from the usual, but in any case, it is much more “real” than boring texts and pictures. You can see this for yourself by looking at virtual tours of several famous museums that are offered below.

Louvre Museum - official website

The Louvre is one of the largest and most popular museums in the world, which is located in Paris, but you can visit it virtually right now. A virtual tour of the museum consists of several 3D elements that cover different parts of the museum. You can explore the facade of the majestic royal palace, and then go inside and get acquainted with the works of art presented in it. You can zoom in with the built-in QuickTime player. The menu on the left is a list of all available virtual tours of the museum. Unfortunately, there is no Russian language on the site - all in French.

If you are in Paris, be sure to visit this museum. It is open daily, except on Tuesdays and some holidays. Ticket price is 12 euros (600 rubles). And is located 600 meters from the palace of the same name (Metro Saint-Germain-des-Prés / Mabillon).

The National Museum of Natural History is part of one of the largest and most popular museum complexes in the world, managed by the Smithsonian Institution. The museum complex consists of 19 museums and research centers. For many, a tour of this museum is a cherished, but unfortunately, a pipe dream. Now, thanks to virtual tours, you can visit this museum.

You can inspect the room by room, following the index arrows. At your disposal is also a map of the museum, on which you can immediately get to the place of interest to you. Almost all the exhibits can be viewed close-up by clicking on the camera image. Before you go on a virtual tour, make sure that you have a high enough internet connection speed.

Vatican Museum - official website

  Art lovers will find everything in the Vatican Museum, from paintings and sculptures to frescoes. On home page  The site has several collections that you can browse online if you are not lucky enough to visit the Vatican. You just have to watch a virtual tour of the famous Sistine Chapel, as well as get acquainted with other famous collections.

Museums jealously keep their secrets. The greatest treasures of mankind are hidden under dust and thick glasses. Naturally, the new generation is not eager to unravel the mysteries of the past and to join the art. Therefore, more progressive museums of the world have created an interactive version of their halls. Now you can take your children to the museum using the latest technologies that are familiar to them. And WoMo will prompt links to the best virtual museums in the world.

The Louvre

Art, history, travels and adventures - in the first-ever museum you can find a place to your liking. The premises of the Louvre in itself - the focus of the cultural heritage of mankind, because earlier it served as home to the French monarchs. You can fully immerse yourself in the atmosphere and stroll through the floors of this magnificent structure. Unfortunately, not all rooms are available on the virtual tour.

Where to see: louvre.fr

Vatican Museums

The main catholic museum of the world. Spiritual and cultural center. It is not possible to transfer in video filming or on a photo of all the beauty and greatness of this place. But, nevertheless, the Vatican lifts the veil of secrets and admits to its treasury. In the virtual tour presented Sistine Chapel, on which you can wander, having considered all the elements of decoration and frescoes, as well as a number of museum halls. You can view them only with the help of photos and descriptions.

Where to see: vatican.va

British National Gallery

The national gallery has become the hero of many British films. She keeps in her halls amazing masterpieces of Western European painting XIII - early XX century. The gems in her crown are paintings by Titian, Rubens, Lorenna, Turner and many others. Your children will be able to get acquainted not only with objects of art, but also with the magnificent building of the museum.

Theater-Museum Dali

What can you expect from a genius surrealist? His museum, to the creation of which he himself had a hand, is truly a work of art. Entangled labyrinths, terraces and scenes - thanks to the interactive version you can watch only a small part of all the magnificence. Everyone will like the museum, because Salvador Dali is not boring.

Tretyakov Gallery

Thanks to the merchant Tretyakov, the world was able to see the greatest masterpieces of fine art of the Russian Empire. The iconography of Andrei Rublev, pictures of the greatest Russian artists of the nineteenth century, portraits of famous writers and poets, familiar to us from childhood from textbooks on literature. And, of course, the amazing and inimitable hall of Vrubel. And much more.

Hermitage

The Hermitage is called the Louvre of Western Europe. This palace has seen the rise and fall of the empire and keeps in its halls many of the treasures of world history and the arts. Site visitors will have the opportunity to view the main collections and exhibits of this magnificent structure, as well as learn about the history and architecture of the palace.

Where to see: streetvi.ru

National Museum of Natural History in Washington

The museum holds over 126 million samples of plants, animals, minerals, minerals, rocks, meteorites, as well as archaeological and cultural artifacts. Walking through its halls, you can visit the dinosaur hall, view the Hope's diamond, the most famous gem of the New World, and the museum building itself is worth a visit.

Where to see: mnh.si.edu

Frick Collection in New York

The Frick collection echoes the Tretyakov Gallery: it is also a huge private collection of a person who decided that art should belong to the world. Canvases by Vermeer, Goya, Van Dyck, Titian, El Greco and many other Western European artists. They note that this museum is good not only for its exposure, but also for its atmosphere.

Where to see: frick.org

National Gallery of Art in Washington

The National Gallery of Art contains one of the best collections in the world. Presents paintings, sculptures, interior items of American and European masters of craftsmen. In the western building of the museum are collected works from the Middle Ages to the end of the XIX century. There you will meet the masterpieces of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, da Vinci. And the eastern building stores works of contemporary art: Picasso, Matisse, Warhol.

Where to see: nga.gov

Madame Tussauds museum

It was always interesting for ordinary people to look closely at a known person. This inclination very successfully turned Madame Tussauds into a profitable business 200 years ago. Now, honor, no less than the nominal star on the Alley of Stars, is considered to have its own double in this famous museum.

Uffizi Gallery

Small gallery in a small Italian town. Everything would be banal and simple, if the town in Tuscany were not Florence: a place for life and work of the greatest talents of the Renaissance. The Uffizi Gallery preserves the memory and masterpieces of the century, when Europe awakened after the grim dream of the Middle Ages and turned again to the glorification of the beauty and value of the human person.

White House

Almost the most famous building in the United States, the home and workplace of American presidents, the most popular place in attendance in Washington. The White House opens the veil of secrets and lets viewers into some of its rooms. This is one of the first virtual museums, because there are no beautiful and convenient interactive rooms. Nevertheless, you can visit the basketball court, tennis court, golf lawn, swimming pool, cinema, jogging track and bowling alley. Unfortunately, there is no famous round room in the virtual tour.

Galileo Museum

"And yet it turns!" The museum is dedicated to the memory of the great rebel of his time - the physicist Galileo Galilei. In his rooms you can find not only objects created or connected with the life of a scientist, but it is also a science museum in which you can follow the path of development of certain things familiar to us. This is a whole attraction, which is located in the palace of the XII century.

Google Art Project

The Google Art Project is the largest online platform through which you access the greatest works of art. The project was launched in February 2011. Initially, it was supported by only 17 museums, but today more than 184 museums in the world have joined. And if, for one reason or another, there is no opportunity to see masterpieces live, our developing technological world opens up tremendous opportunities for humanity.

How to conduct virtual tours of museums, and why we need a similar service.

Many people would like to regularly visit interesting objects and galleries, but not everyone has enough time and opportunities for this (especially when it comes to museums in another country or city).

Come to the aid of online tours that allow you to get acquainted with the exhibits, without departing from.

Contents:

The essence of the concept

Usually these are presented on the main website of the museum or gallery, and is implemented technically in the form. It consists of many panoramas by analogy with other similar services. You can “move around” with the help of the arrows on the screen, and thus view all the available rooms.

Board: Different institutions may have a slightly different format. But, often, it is quite simple, and the management of "movements" quite quickly becomes intuitive. Usually, there are arrows on the screen, which indicate possible directions of movement.

They are created by developers at the initiative of the owners. They allow you to familiarize yourself with exhibitions and collections, and also are able to stimulate interest in the viewer to the real visit.

The Louvre

Excursion to some of the halls of the Louvre can be made by passing here. The site does not contain all the exhibits, and there are no temporary exhibitions and expositions. But you can visit the following:

• Egyptian archeology;
• The medieval Louvre (dedicated to the heritage of the time when the building was the palace of the French kings);
• Gallery Apollo.

To view the hall you need on the page that opens on the link, select the one that interests you. Under its description, click on the Launch Virtual Tour button, and in the opened window, move the cursor over the exhibits, click on them. Below the main window there is a field with a description, and a map where you can choose the exhibitions of interest.

In order to make an online tour of the Hermitage, you must follow the link. The application is created on the same engine as, therefore, it is quite convenient and familiar to use it. The window can be maximized.

The page that opens on the link presents a window with panoramas. You need to navigate through it using the arrow buttons on the screen (by analogy with Google panoramas). The tour starts in the central gallery, in order to "go" in the next, click the left on the image of the door.

In the lower right corner of the main tour window there is an image of a compass. With it, you can change the direction of the camera by moving it left and right. Next to the compass there are buttons with the numbers 0 and 1 - they represent the floors of the palace-museum.

"Visit" it can be on the link. This is one of the largest and most varied online tours of all described in this article, as it provides access to 18 rooms of the Gallery. The page presents an online tour window that can be expanded to full screen.

The controls are quite simple - hold down the left mouse button and move the cursor left and right in order to inspect the hall. In the lower left corner of the window there is a FloorPlans button. Clicking on it opens the floor plan, where you can select the room of interest.

Nearby there is also a Paintings button. When you click on it, a list of pictures opens, where you can read information about them in English. But not all the exhibits are included in this list.

National Museum of Natural History in Washington

You can “visit” one of the most popular and largest natural history museums in the world via the link. When you click on it, a page of virtual tours opens, of which there are several types:

1. Permanent exposure;
2. Other tours.

Click on the window of the selected tour and, on the new page, in the upper right corner, find the switch between the floors. Indicate which floor you want to view. When you click on the floor will open his map - in it, click on the hall in which you want to "get".

You can also switch between them at the bottom of the screen. By clicking on the arrows to the right and left, move between the elements of the list. When you find one, click on the photo to “move” into it.

This is a very diverse and extensive online tour. It provides access to virtually all permanent exhibits. And sometimes it includes some temporary exposure.

White House Museum

Under the link you can see the main building of the United States, which has become not only a symbol of this state, but also a symbol of democracy. On-line rooms for viewing are available for visitors as part of excursion programs. On the main page of the site that opens on the link, you must click on the Start The Tour button.

After that, a page will open with a brief history of the building, as well as with links to those rooms that you can “inspect”.

The positive difference of this online museum is a very large number of exhibitions with free access to the inspection, as well as a detailed historical background of each room and hall. The downside is the fact that 3D panoramas are not presented here, but only detailed photos of interiors and exhibits.

   Anna Ionova / 09/01/2016

The development of the Internet, databases and multimedia technologies has allowed the phenomenon of a virtual museum to occupy its niche in the world of culture and art in the intangible information space. Virtual museums  appeared in the 90s of the last century and since then actively continue their development. Museums on the Internet have some advantages over ordinary museums. The virtual museum works round the clock on weekends, holidays, and you can use it absolutely free. There are no queues for tickets, and the visit time is unlimited. Exhibitions in the virtual museum can last for years, and exhibits retain their original condition and do not deteriorate under any circumstances.

In a virtual museum, exhibits from various real-life museums can coexist, while the number of exhibits is not limited to the volume of rooms and storerooms, as is the case in real museums. Visitors to such museums can take a virtual walk through the halls of the museum, familiarize themselves with its collections, and in some museums you can view the exhibits from all sides using 3D-models, and tour guides successfully replace tour recordings or informational references. In addition, some museums contain large amounts of additional information (including films, audio recordings, animations) or links to it, which allows to study the issue in more detail.

The main goal of the virtual museum is no different from the purpose of the real-life museum - it is to educate people and familiarize them with the world heritage of human history and culture. Of course, true connoisseurs will find it difficult to replace the original on the wall in a museum with a photo on the Internet, but for many categories of people a virtual museum is an opportunity to see masterpieces at least through a monitor screen. We are talking about people who can not afford to travel to another city or country to visit a museum, or people who are limited in their physical abilities. Virtual museums are of great importance for scientists and researchers in the field of cultural studies, history, art history, since they need constant open access  to works, sometimes located at different ends of the planet.

Virtual museums, like the “material” ones, preserve the cultural heritage, only it is in electronic digitized form. Digitization is sometimes the only way to see the original of the exhibit - some ancient and dilapidated items are always kept in the vaults under protection from external influences, and visitors are exposed to copies. In addition, the digitized volume can be “leafed through” completely, and in the museum the audience will be shown only an open book under glass, without the ability to read other pages. Digitization serves another important goal - the restoration and restoration of cultural heritage, damaged or completely lost as a result of natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks. This applies not only to individual objects, but also to entire buildings, park ensembles and other larger-scale categories of cultural and historical monuments.

The concept of “virtual museum” in a broad sense has two meanings:

Representation of a real-life museum on the Internet;

A true virtual museum, that is, a resource that stores and exposes all interested people to a collection of works, materials, etc. in the museum space, located exclusively on the Internet.

The first value is widespread throughout the world. Virtually every well-known museum has virtual tours of buildings, exhibits reviews, virtual tours of individual exhibitions, that is, an electronic version of a real-life museum or part of it. As a rule, a virtual journey can be made right on the official website of the museum. So you can get acquainted with the masterpieces of the Paris Louvre, the New York Guggenheim Museum, take a virtual walk through the George Washington Museum Mount Vernon or get into the White House. Excellent virtual tours are on the site of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington and on the Hermitage site. Virtual collections of exhibits can be found on the website of the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts. Alexander Pushkin and many other Russian and foreign museums. In addition to virtual tours, official websites contain announcements of exhibitions, up-to-date information on ticket prices, time and operating hours of the museum, an online store, a map and much more. In this context, a virtual museum serves to attract visitors to a real museum. There are also sites that host virtual tours, for example, for Russian museums, these are http://www.panotours.ru/ or http://www.culture.ru/.

Virtual tour  on the Museum-Reserve "Tsarskoye Selo". ( http://www.culture.ru )

A global contribution to the development of electronic culture has been made by the Google Culture Institute and its Google Arts & Culture project. The project started in 2011 and now it provides access to a huge collection of exhibits from hundreds of private collections, archives and museums located around the world. The site has 3 sections - “Art”, “History” and “Wonders of the World”, so here you can not only see digitized copies of world masterpieces, but also virtually visit the most famous museums and historical monuments like Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids. The 360-degree photo-panoramas are made in excellent quality, which makes it possible to see the smallest details, and the filter system helps to find the necessary material according to different criteria - artists, trends, techniques, objects, and even the basic color.

Prague National Theater, Czech Republic. ( https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute )

  The “virtual museum” in the second meaning has no real museum, on the basis of which it could be founded, but at the same time it has its own structure, collection of exhibits, catalogs and much more, that is, in fact, the structure for the virtual museum can be material ”museum. The virtual museum also has some idea or subject matter of the exhibits, on the basis of which it is “built” and developed. The implementation of a virtual museum is an information resource (usually a website, a web page, a disk) intended for the presentation of museum materials, which has enhanced capabilities for their search and classification, additional interactive and multimedia tools for displaying works. Such virtual museums create cultural institutions, schools, universities, libraries, and private commercial organizations. The subject of virtual museums can be very different - historical (Hampson Virtual Museum - virtual archaeological museum, Virtual Museum of the Gulag), art (Virtual Museum of Canada, Europeana - electronic collection of European art and printing, MOCA: Museum of Computer Art), cognitive (Virtual Museum computer science, Museum of Television and Radio on the Internet, Virtual Computer Museum, Museum of Things.hngs.co, educational project NASA), entertainment (Virtual Museum of Locomotives, The Virtual Shoe Museum).

NASA Virtual Museum. ( http://www.nasa.gov )

Any virtual museum should provide good quality content (digitization, photo and video), content of exhibitions (availability of metadata, information and historical references, audio guides), orientation to the general public and user-friendly interface, navigation, and search for the necessary data. All of these components and convert the usual site with a set of photos in a virtual museum. As for the clear rules for the organization of virtual museums, for example, in Russia in 2014, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation issued “Technical recommendations on the creation of virtual museums”. They mainly relate to representations of real museums on the Internet, but some of these recommendations can also be used to create a museum based solely on the virtual space. So, the recommendations set the minimum permissible resolution of photos on the short side of 800-2000 pixels, the encoding format is JPEG or JPEG-2000, for panoramic photos the viewing angle on the horizontal axis should be 360 ​​degrees and on the vertical axis 180 degrees, it is recommended to use integration with social networks and etc. The result of the creation of a virtual museum should be an informational and educational resource that preserves the historical and cultural heritage and presents it to visitors in excellent quality.

Virtual museums have great potential, not yet fully appreciated in Russia. The digital cultural heritage is becoming increasingly important, and the time is not far off when it will become a separate art form, like cinema or computer games. And the newest technologies - virtual and augmented reality, panoramic video - in the future will make a visit to a virtual museum practically real.