alt.hn

3/12/2026 at 3:43:39 PM

The Met releases high-def 3D scans of 140 famous art objects

 https://www.openculture.com/2026/03/the-met-releases-high-definition-3d-scans-of-140-famous-art-objects.html

by coloneltcb

3/12/2026 at 5:58:30 PM

Trivial to see the raw GLB files in a Viewer that gives you a bit more control.

https://github.khronos.org/glTF-Sample-Viewer-Release/?model...

by callumprentice

3/13/2026 at 10:39:26 AM

The way most museum 3d viewers don't provide a download button always seemed a little odd to me.

by RobotToaster

3/13/2026 at 3:03:14 PM

Trying to capitalize on merchandising, even though it's all public domain.

by Geonode

3/13/2026 at 3:48:04 PM

That’s a really unfavourable view for what is a likely an oversight in UI design.

by dagmx

3/13/2026 at 6:56:20 PM

It's well established. Most public websites for museums have galleries of high res scans, and they're mostly all trying to keep you from downloading it. There are lots of tools out there to circumvent them, however.

by Geonode

3/13/2026 at 7:24:22 PM

This is a tautology and one at odds with itself. They simultaneously provide the high res scans but you think there’s a conspiracy to keep you from them. Why provide them in the first place then?

by dagmx

3/14/2026 at 12:50:52 AM

Not at all. They want people to experience what they have, but they don't want a small subset of people selling prints, T-shirts, and little statues. From their perspective, they sell excellent quality prints, etc. in the gift shop and online, and the proceeds benefit the collection. So they lock down downloads if they can.

by Geonode

3/14/2026 at 5:24:17 AM

But it’s not locked down, by your own admission.

by dagmx

3/14/2026 at 11:35:56 AM

Almost impossible to stop a determined actor from downloading media that you're serving to a browser. Most organizations don't have the budget or understanding. They outsource their websites, and ask for it to be as secure as possible.

by Geonode

3/12/2026 at 6:34:39 PM

Here's a little script to download all the publicly available scans (135) as GLBs and stick the metadata in a JSON. The scans are all CC0 (public domain)

https://github.com/InconsolableCellist/met_scans

by IAmNotACellist

3/14/2026 at 5:05:52 PM

I appreciate you building this and putting it on github -- I used it to build a simple offline gallery viewer.

Thank You For Making And Sharing!

by disqard

3/13/2026 at 1:06:25 AM

anyone wanna throw up a magnet link for this so we don't hammer their website unnecessarily?

by thot_experiment

3/13/2026 at 10:59:05 AM

maybe you could throw up a magnet link

by petcat

3/13/2026 at 1:29:17 AM

It's only a few hundred MB, and hopefully they're using a CDN.

by reverius42

3/13/2026 at 8:51:49 AM

For someone that doesn’t know about this, how does a CDN help? Don’t they still have to pay for all the data downloaded even if it’s hosted on a CDN. I thought the whole purpose of a CDN was just to make access quicker and had nothing to do with saving on bandwidth costs.

by dyauspitr

3/13/2026 at 10:58:43 AM

> hammer their website unnecessarily

This is what a CDN will prevent

by petcat

3/13/2026 at 1:29:02 AM

Thank you! Going to try to 3d print some of these and see how they come out.

by reverius42

3/12/2026 at 5:14:14 PM

The original article is https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/03/metropolitan-museum-o... Not sure why that is not linked, instead we have an AI generated SEO spam page.

by Stevvo

3/13/2026 at 12:56:26 AM

OpenCulture's been around for a long time and has been a pretty good aggregator for interesting things in art and culture.

by roughly

3/13/2026 at 12:07:02 AM

You have no basis to claim that this is AI generated content

by corndoge

3/12/2026 at 6:37:22 PM

For what it's worth I thought the modal dialog on the original was worse than the pop-over ad on the copy.

by PaulHoule

3/12/2026 at 4:24:56 PM

It's kind of annoying that the 3D viewer on their website keep you a respectful distance away from the object like you might try to touch it if you got too close.

by jandrese

3/12/2026 at 8:23:22 PM

It appears they arbitrarily limit the zoom such that the object stays within the browser frame. On my gigantic monitor I can get super close. Lame that they set it to stop like that

by virgil_disgr4ce

3/12/2026 at 4:41:26 PM

It works really well with the AR viewer on mobile Safari.

by knolan

3/12/2026 at 9:29:16 PM

For anyone wondering, you can access this by tapping the button showing a 3D cube at the bottom left of the 3D viewer. The button may be cut off if you're viewing in a web view in another app like I was.

The AR viewer runs with a much higher frame rate and you can get closer to the model. However the lighting is significantly worse, which ruins the appeal. The in-browser viewer is choppy and I can feel my phone getting a little warm, but it looks a lot more like viewing the real artifacts.

by Uncorrelated

3/13/2026 at 10:23:04 AM

Doesn't seem to be an option on Firefox android

by RobotToaster

3/13/2026 at 3:49:58 PM

The AR viewer is using ARKit on iOS which is a default system “app”. I don’t believe Google provides the same kind of built in viewer experience with AR Core being surfaced as an app.

by dagmx

3/12/2026 at 5:11:09 PM

Interesting, on desktop Firefox I can barely zoom in past the point that the object fills the FOV.

I want to be permitted to navigate up close to a point where I can see the pixels and triangle meshes, as if I was a millimeter away from some brush stroke or chisel mark, and then back out just a bit.

by LeifCarrotson

3/12/2026 at 5:34:01 PM

Glad this was one of the objects captured, it's absolutely stunning to see in person: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/24671

I wish they had captured one of their Faberge eggs; those are almost more impressive.

by danielvaughn

3/13/2026 at 12:47:51 AM

Incredible. Why isn't it in France?

by markdown

3/13/2026 at 1:19:57 AM

Not sure, but there's also a Van Gogh in that 3D collection, you could ask the same question for that one.

by danielvaughn

3/13/2026 at 10:35:55 AM

Probably the same reason there are french imperial eagles in British museums.

by RobotToaster

3/13/2026 at 3:03:16 PM

The provenance according to the Met:

>Henry II, King of France (until d. 1559);

>Carl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Residenzschloss, Weimar (by 1804–d. 1828);

>by descent to Wilhelm Ernst, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Residenzschloss, Weimar, later Schloss Heinrichau, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Henryków, Poland) (1901–d. 1923);

>his widow, Feodora, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Schloss Heinrichau (1923–1929;

>sold in May, 1929, to Kahlert & Sohn);

>[E. Kahlert & Sohn, Berlin, 1929;

>sold on December 14, 1929, for $135,000, to Sir Joseph Duveen for Mackay];

>Clarence H. Mackay, New York (1929–d. 1939; his estate, 1939, inv. no. A-17;

>sold through Jacques Seligmann & Co. on May 15, 1939, to MMA).

Unfortunately, this does not answer "why did it leave France?"

However, the book "Merchants of Art, 1880-1960: Eighty Years of Professional Collecting" (1961) by the rather famous art dealer Germain Seligman offers this missing link:

>Parade armor of King Henri II, embossed, damascened and gilded. Later presented by King Louis XIII to Bernhard von Weimar.

by JasonADrury

3/14/2026 at 5:33:39 AM

Thanks

by markdown

3/13/2026 at 1:08:52 AM

The museum helpfully has a "Provenance" tab that gives you the answer to this question. (the answer in this case is market capitalism)

by thot_experiment

3/12/2026 at 7:30:36 PM

> high-def 3D scans

maybe 15, 20 years ago. I especially found the glossy shader goofy. No authentic replication, more 2000s gaming vibes. they should use gaussian splatting instead

by Eduard

3/12/2026 at 7:45:22 PM

I wish they would also publish the source images used to generate the 3D representation so people can recreate with other techniques.

by dmarcos

3/12/2026 at 4:27:38 PM

Anyone know how the material roughness/metallic is captured? For instance here https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253348. I've only seen basic albedo for 3D scans before. Maybe it's just hand-authored.

by minihoster

3/12/2026 at 4:46:31 PM

No idea what they used but I know that in Brussels they use CultArm3D FT20 by https://verus.digital basically a camera on a robot arm.

by utopiah

3/12/2026 at 5:25:57 PM

From what I saw in that file and a few others (in USDZ), the metalness is not captured. It's in 0/1_b.jpg , and the file is always pure white. You are only seeing roughness I opened them in Houdini and it translates to a USDPreview material, with those PBR channels connected: basecolor, roughness (decent map), metallic (no data, juste white) and normal map (decent map too)

by alecail

3/12/2026 at 4:29:42 PM

> Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

>

> To request images under copyright and other restrictions, …

If these are available as public domain with unrestricted use without fee, what is the use case for requesting a version under copyright with restrictions?

by jonhohle

3/12/2026 at 6:29:25 PM

No idea. But I've integrated their API to a commercial project (https://bookmarker.cc) without any issues. Users are exploring The Met Collection and save images to their library directly in the app.

> Through The Met Collection API, users can connect to a live feed of all Creative Commons Zero (CC0) data and 406,000 images from the The Met collection, all available for use without copyright or restriction. The Met Collection API is another foundational step in our Open Access program, helping make the Museum's collection one of the most accessible, discoverable, and useful on the internet. The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can now connect to the most up-to-date data and images of artworks in The Met collection, representing five thousand years of human history.

source: https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/met-collection-api-2

by kaizenb

3/12/2026 at 10:30:45 PM

Images 1, 2, 3 are under open access

Images 4, 5, 6 are still under copyright

Images 7, 8, 9 have usage restrictions

by cwillu

3/13/2026 at 7:49:22 AM

You misread it. The things that are public domain are available under that. The other things which are (still) under copyright are available under different terms.

by mkl

3/13/2026 at 8:35:02 AM

Is anyone from the Computer History Museum listening? If they could do that, as well as scans with “exploded” parts it’d be a boon for both students and enthusiasts, who’d be able to 3D print replacements for many parts.

by rbanffy

3/13/2026 at 1:28:34 PM

That would be cool. I really would like a 3d-printed replica shell of one of the old serial terminals, e.g. the TeleVideo 910.

by jensgk

3/13/2026 at 2:18:57 PM

I’d totally make an IBM 3278, 3279, or 3290 my daily driver.

by rbanffy

3/12/2026 at 10:23:15 PM

Very cool! Checking out the Van Gogh painting in the viewer I can just barely see the depth of the brush strokes. Shame you can't look 90 degrees off axis to see the protrusion effect with the bulky outer frame in the way.

by jsd1982

3/12/2026 at 8:35:23 PM

How easy is it to 3D print them?

by mturilin

3/13/2026 at 3:52:50 PM

You’d have to convert them from GLB or USDZ to something your sliver of choice understands.

Bambulabs app will directly read the USDZ if you’re on a Mac for example.

by dagmx

3/12/2026 at 4:11:02 PM

I see the “spinning” view in browser, but I don’t see an option to download the STLs.

Edit: It appears the usdz AR file can be converted to obj/stl files.

by xattt

3/12/2026 at 5:08:44 PM

Each of the models is available in fbx, usdz and glb if you dig a bit in the page. It's in a json file named masters

by alecail

3/12/2026 at 5:26:22 PM

Any recommendations for art objects worth 3D printing at home? Bonus points if it would appeal to a grade schooler.

by teachrdan

3/12/2026 at 10:46:39 PM

These scans seem perfect for fabrication experiments.

I’ve been trying a workflow where the mesh is inverted and used to generate a 3D-printed mold, then I gelcast zirconia ceramic into it and sinter it. The result is a dense ceramic version of the sculpture.

If you downscale the models they work well as small desktop statues or relief friezes, and ceramic casting can preserve surprisingly fine detail from the scan.

by voxleone

3/12/2026 at 5:43:11 PM

I wanted to try printing one but so far all of them seem like they’d be kind of disturbing to display in my house.

by bilsbie

3/12/2026 at 5:47:57 PM

This one maybe? https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544887

Fill the base with concrete and use it as a bookend?

by gpm

3/12/2026 at 7:10:40 PM

True. I’ll give it a try. They really didn’t think about supports when they designed this thing.

by bilsbie

3/12/2026 at 8:21:38 PM

Let me know how it goes! I might try this as well.

by gpm

3/12/2026 at 6:54:48 PM

Absolutely beautiful scans. Thanks Met. Wonderful art that brightened my day.

by beckerdo

3/12/2026 at 9:10:33 PM

This data needs to be reprocessed to make 3D gaussian splats instead.

by Chronoz99

3/12/2026 at 10:18:32 PM

Compare those scans to this splat for example: https://superspl.at/scene/d10c5638 The visual quality is unbeatable for 3D reconstruction IMO.

by Chronoz99

3/12/2026 at 4:42:58 PM

Does anyone know where the STL/OBJ files for the 3d models are at?

by infocollector

3/12/2026 at 4:44:56 PM

Check your browser console, network tab, search for .glb and you can directly download them.

by utopiah

3/12/2026 at 5:28:09 PM

Look for the file named masters, it's a json file that contains the filenames for those formats: glb usdz fbx

by alecail

3/13/2026 at 2:42:58 AM

This is a fantastic resource, not only for present generations, but also especially for future generations if any of these objects were to be damaged or destroyed.

by BenFranklin100

3/12/2026 at 11:26:08 PM

Can't wait to see how this plays with Vision Pro

by bookofjoe

3/13/2026 at 8:10:06 PM

Unfortunately they aren't high quality scans

by yeah879846

3/12/2026 at 4:34:22 PM

Great use of WebXR.

Works well both on the Vision Pro (USDz format) and Meta Quest (glTF binary format).

That being said without the right mediation, without some context... unless you already are an expert in the domain what's the point?

by utopiah

3/12/2026 at 10:03:01 PM

[dead]

by junglistguy

3/12/2026 at 7:10:50 PM

[flagged]

by themarogee

3/13/2026 at 4:13:27 AM

[dead]

by XR843