Hi-Res Panorama of the Sistine Chapel | Hacker News Reader

Hi-Res Panorama of the Sistine Chapel

vatican.va

83 pointsajaykam24 comments

Until this, I thought the only painting was on the ceiling. Wow, I need to travel. Was just reading another thread about logo design, and then I look at this..

So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.

Great movie that I just had to quote. I really hope to visit the chapel someday, and this site only reinforces my desire.

It's extremely busy in the chapel and you will have no time to smell anything. The guards will also try to keep the masses moving along, so there is very little left of the serene atmosphere you expect. That being said, it's still very beautiful.

Beat me to it. Italy is one of the most touristed countries in the world and the Sistine Chapel is one of the most popular spots in the country.

If you have issues with crowded places, be prepared for this one as it is nearly always packed with people. What you'll smell is probably primarily body odour and what you'll hear is yabbering tourists, and guards telling people off for taking photos.

On our family visit to Rome in 2000 (10 people! the logistics! don't remind me ;-), we got a private tour of the Sistine chapel, since my brother knew someone who had pull at the museum. No rush. Fantastico.

Another relevant movie: "The Agony and the Ecstasy" with Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058886/

Did anyone else chuckle at the copyright notice on the floor?

The interface is clunky. I don't like how the format is "the farther you are away from the point you started on, the more you accelerate." I prefer to have my mouse cursor stuck to one location, which I can then move around.

Yea agreed. I think you can do what you're asking for by clicking the 'm' button on the bottom left hand corner.

Mouse over method seems to work the best and allowed me to see what I wanted to see without the camera zipping in one direction because I moved the mouse a little out of center.

Click the "M" at the bottom left of the viewer to change to a Google Maps-style drag interface. (not the most obvious of buttons to click, either, but it's there!)

I wish they would have mapped the images to a 3D rendition of the chapel. It's not overly complex that it couldn't be done. It would fix the distortion issues present when you're not staring at the artwork at 100% zoom.

Can't say I've spent much time on vatican.va and from a quick look at the site, it's not obvious... is anyone aware of any similar work done by the Vatican to make this sort of thing available online?

Via http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-30009, I learned that Villanova's Communications department is responsible for the technology behind the images. There are more links to 360 views at the bottom of that article, including this one to see St. Peter's: http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/i...

Beautiful. I was only a child when i was in rome (5-6 years old) it's things like this that really make me want to visit again and see this

It is a little clunky, and you can see some stitching errors (or possibly lighting errors if they lit it in sections), but wow.

Clunky or not, it still gives people who have never had a chance to see the chapel in person a perspective of how much beautiful art and history there is packed in this one little place.

Now on a side note, I must have came late in the day because I definetly do not remember it being that bright in the chapel when I went.

Use Ctrl and Shift to zoom in and out without the mouse.

Mute button please?

I dunno that angelic music really goes with some of the more violent scenes, reminds me of clockwork orange

Try this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stop-autoplay...

Unfortunately flashblock and stop autoplay both prevent the viewer from starting at all, and once you click to start, it plays the unmutable music.

There's a Flashmute extension on there too, but it's windows-only.

wow

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