In celebration of International Museum Day, the Google Cultural Institute is delivering the Art Camera to galleries across the globe to preserve famous works of art for future generations.
Touted as being capable of taking gigapixel shots, it can give online users a good, close look at the paintings of the masters without the need to go beyond their doorsteps.
For those who are wondering, a gigapixel consists of more than 1 billion pixels, and needless to say, an image of that quality gets the detail down to every brushstroke and dab of paint. However, as everyone can imagine, it takes time to capture such photos, but with the Art Camera in hand, Google can make the process a whole deal faster.
Currently, the Mountain View company has 200 gigapixel images in store, and in light of this development, it has considerably increased the selection by 1,000. Notable mentions of art pieces that it captured in ultra-high resolution belong to Monet, Pissarro, Rembrandt, Signac and van Gogh.
Google didn't say how much the Art Camera costs to build, but at first glance, it's easy to tell that it's definitely expensive. With that said, the company is giving it out to the museums free of charge.
"We want to give museums the tools they need to do this important work, so we're sending a fleet of these cameras from museum to museum around the world — for free," Ben St. John, Google Cultural Institute engineer, says.
Now, those who are looking to grab one for themselves shouldn't get their hopes up, as it's not for sale. Perhaps a DSLR camera would do for now.
Don't forget to hit up the video below to see the Art Camera, which is a technological masterpiece itself. Also, feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you think of the gigapixel images that the Google Cultural Institute has brought to the table.
