Interactive Sistine Chapel | Hacker News Reader

Interactive Sistine Chapel

vatican.va

26 pointscarnevalem13 comments

When I was there, I was expecting the iconic god image to be huge but it was only a small part of the ceiling.

In fact, even though the ceiling takes most of the fame, my favorite painting was Michaelangelo's Last Judgement depicted in the altar wall:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_(Michelangelo...

The later-added fig leaves and robe parts do stand out which I thought was a shame. Lots of art in the Vatican museum have private parts which have been broken (in statues) or covered/painted over.

Another impressive point that stands out is that the ceiling is mostly flat. The painted arches and columns give it an amazing 3D look.

Extremely impressive. It took me a few minutes to catch on to the fact that everything was flat, and all of the intricate woodwork I saw around the windows and awnings was, in fact, painted.

Further in the Vatican tour, after the chapel, there's a room which has its ceiling similarly painted to look like woodwork. There is no illusion; you see it immediately for what it is. It helped to demonstrate to me how good Michelangelo was.

Having never been there, I was pretty interested in using the site to discover the Chapel... until 4-5 minutes in and the Flash still wasn't fully pre-loaded on my 50 Mbit connection!

While the final size of the download might remain the same in the end, only loading the requested zoom level à la Google Maps instead would give it a way more acceptable "instant-like" feeling. Pre-loading the entire thing before users can interact is just plain bad usability.

If it wasn't a famous landmark, I would have left the site within 30 seconds. Still, I applaud the initiative and am happy to have seen the place in such details!

Interesting. It did demand-load here. In fact it is still loading (there's a progress bar at about 80% in the middle of the screen and some parts of the image are still blurry)

It seems so small. For those of you that have actually been there, is it really small, or is the perspective just warped because of the medium through which I'm seeing it?

I was there about 7 years ago and it seemed a decent size, but it wasnt big like St. Peters.

A more objective view from wikipedia: "Above is the main space, the Chapel, the internal measurements of which are 40.9 metres (134 ft) long by 13.4 metres (44 ft) wide—the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament[9]."

Partly both. It's not a terribly big room (from wikipedia: "The Sistine Chapel is 40.5 metres long and 14 metres wide. The ceiling rises to 20 metres above the main floor of the chapel."), but still it's quite an impressive room. I've been twice now, and both times was in awe of the art and the scope of the work.

It is rather small, but not a lot smaller than any other chapel.

The site makes it look smaller than it actually is.

Yeah most (including myself) found it small and "dingy" (poorly lit and maintained). A pity really because the 3d nature of the art was impressive, particularly given its era.

It's a rather humble chapel, considering. Particularly if you see it immediately after seeing St. Peter's Bascilica, which is mind-blowing.

But that's part of what's amazing about it. It's not a large chapel, but then you look up and see one of the most iconic images in Western civilization.

At Disney's Epcot Center some 13 years ago I remember they had virtual sistine chapel with a headtracking setup and 3d headset. The other people in the room could just watch on a projector.

I got to 'drive' it but we had to stop it early because some lady in the room was getting severe motion sickness from me flying around the room quickly. I guess she wasn't used to seeing things like that.

Looks like PixelCase technology, which has a similar styled aerial view of Australian cities: http://melbourne.com/ - and New York http://www.pixelcase.com.au/vr/2009/newyork/

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