{"id":315836,"date":"2026-03-06T10:18:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315836\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:18:29","slug":"explore-the-mets-collection-in-3d-from-your-couch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315836\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore The Met\u2019s Collection in 3D From Your Couch"},"content":{"rendered":"

News<\/a><\/p>\n

The museum offers scans of items including a painting by Claude Monet, Neolithic sculptures, and Greek terracotta vases.<\/p>\n


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\"Explore
\n Some of the 3D scans were done in collaboration with Japan’s national broadcaster NHK. (image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art)<\/p>\n

A voluptuous Neolithic marble figurine<\/a>, a model Nayarit home<\/a> from ancient Mesoamerica, Claude Monet’s 1891 painting “Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun)” \u2014 these are among the items in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection that are now available to the public as high-quality 3D scans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, the museum released 100 scans of objects from its collection for free on its website as part of an institutional push to increase \u201caccess to the museum\u2019s collection and scholarship,” Met Director and CEO Max Hollein said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic. It’s the first batch in a selection of over 100 scans that will be made public, the museum said.<\/p>\n

While The Met\u2019s website maintains images of thousands of artworks, the new scans allow users around the world to get up close and personal. Through the museum’s digital collection<\/a>, users can zoom in and view objects from multiple angles, as well as through virtual reality headsets.\u00a0Nine of the models, including one of Vincent van Gogh\u2019s 1889 painting \u201cWheat Field with Cypresses<\/a>,” were created in collaboration with the Japanese national broadcaster NHK using photogrammetry and laser scanning processes. <\/p>\n

\"\"A 3D rendering of a “Marble female figure,” dated to 4500\u20134000 BCE (screenshot<\/a> Hyperallergic with permission from The Met)<\/p>\n

Last November, the museum made its first foray into virtual reality with gameified tours<\/a> of the Temple of Dendur, one of its signature exhibits, and the Oceania galleries<\/a>, which opened last summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough these digital experiences, we are expanding meaningful new pathways into The Met collection, inviting audiences around the world to engage with these works in dynamic and immersive ways,\u201d Hollein said in the statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stella Kim, a spokesperson for The Met, told Hyperallergic that this initial round of works had been scanned over the last decade and added that the institution has increased the number of objects it digitizes in 3D form each year. Kim did not comment on how many digital scans of the museum\u2019s 1.5 million-item collection it planned to make publicly available.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note, 3\/5\/2026, 2:46pm EST: This report was updated with more accurate information about the museum’s initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News The museum offers scans of items including a painting by Claude Monet, Neolithic sculptures, and Greek terracotta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-315836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}