The Met releases high-def 3D scans of 140 famous art objects
306 points by coloneltcb 22 hours ago | 60 comments

callumprentice 20 hours ago
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...

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RobotToaster 3 hours ago
The way most museum 3d viewers don't provide a download button always seemed a little odd to me.
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kevthecoder 41 minutes ago
Scott Geffert did a talk about The Met scanning process on Weds at the OpenUSD working group meeting. Here's the link he shared which explains more (along with a bit of history) https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/color-photography-sta...
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IAmNotACellist 19 hours ago
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

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thot_experiment 12 hours ago
anyone wanna throw up a magnet link for this so we don't hammer their website unnecessarily?
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petcat 3 hours ago
maybe you could throw up a magnet link
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reverius42 12 hours ago
It's only a few hundred MB, and hopefully they're using a CDN.
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dyauspitr 5 hours ago
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.
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petcat 3 hours ago
> hammer their website unnecessarily

This is what a CDN will prevent

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reverius42 12 hours ago
Thank you! Going to try to 3d print some of these and see how they come out.
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Stevvo 20 hours ago
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.
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corndoge 13 hours ago
You have no basis to claim that this is AI generated content
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roughly 13 hours ago
OpenCulture's been around for a long time and has been a pretty good aggregator for interesting things in art and culture.
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PaulHoule 19 hours ago
For what it's worth I thought the modal dialog on the original was worse than the pop-over ad on the copy.
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jandrese 21 hours ago
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.
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knolan 21 hours ago
It works really well with the AR viewer on mobile Safari.
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Uncorrelated 16 hours ago
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.

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RobotToaster 3 hours ago
Doesn't seem to be an option on Firefox android
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LeifCarrotson 20 hours ago
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.

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virgil_disgr4ce 17 hours ago
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
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danielvaughn 20 hours ago
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.

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markdown 13 hours ago
Incredible. Why isn't it in France?
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RobotToaster 3 hours ago
Probably the same reason there are french imperial eagles in British museums.
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danielvaughn 12 hours ago
Not sure, but there's also a Van Gogh in that 3D collection, you could ask the same question for that one.
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thot_experiment 12 hours ago
The museum helpfully has a "Provenance" tab that gives you the answer to this question. (the answer in this case is market capitalism)
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samcgraw 15 hours ago
So cool!

It recently dawned on me how we have a staggering amount of art available in these archives (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en, the Met, etc). It's truly staggering. Can't wait to use these images for my side project[0].

[0] https://flaneur.ink

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tokai 15 hours ago
Europeana is also great. Such a huge amount of material available out there.

https://www.europeana.eu/

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timpera 5 hours ago
Compare to: https://cosmowenman.substack.com/p/secret-3d-scans-in-the-fr...

I wish more museums would share their scans.

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rbanffy 5 hours ago
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.
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Eduard 18 hours ago
> 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

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dmarcos 18 hours ago
I wish they would also publish the source images used to generate the 3D representation so people can recreate with other techniques.
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minihoster 21 hours ago
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.
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utopiah 21 hours ago
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.
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alecail 20 hours ago
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)
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jsd1982 15 hours ago
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.
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ehnto 11 hours ago
I did initially doubt the usefulness of viewing the paintings and embroidery in 3D, but then I spun this around and the back of the board is interesting as well.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/48982

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jonhohle 21 hours ago
> 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?

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kaizenb 19 hours ago
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

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mkl 6 hours ago
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.
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cwillu 15 hours ago
Images 1, 2, 3 are under open access

Images 4, 5, 6 are still under copyright

Images 7, 8, 9 have usage restrictions

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dfxm12 21 hours ago
Not everything is open access data and public domain images.

This image is tagged open access & public domain: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/321937

This image is not: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/492371

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xattt 21 hours ago
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.

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alecail 20 hours ago
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
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bilsbie 20 hours ago
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.
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gpm 20 hours ago
This one maybe? https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544887

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

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bilsbie 18 hours ago
True. I’ll give it a try. They really didn’t think about supports when they designed this thing.
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gpm 17 hours ago
Let me know how it goes! I might try this as well.
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teachrdan 20 hours ago
Any recommendations for art objects worth 3D printing at home? Bonus points if it would appeal to a grade schooler.
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voxleone 15 hours ago
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.

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mturilin 17 hours ago
How easy is it to 3D print them?
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Chronoz99 16 hours ago
This data needs to be reprocessed to make 3D gaussian splats instead.
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Chronoz99 15 hours ago
Compare those scans to this splat for example: https://superspl.at/scene/d10c5638 The visual quality is unbeatable for 3D reconstruction IMO.
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bookofjoe 14 hours ago
Can't wait to see how this plays with Vision Pro
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beckerdo 19 hours ago
Absolutely beautiful scans. Thanks Met. Wonderful art that brightened my day.
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infocollector 21 hours ago
Does anyone know where the STL/OBJ files for the 3d models are at?
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utopiah 21 hours ago
Check your browser console, network tab, search for .glb and you can directly download them.
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alecail 20 hours ago
Look for the file named masters, it's a json file that contains the filenames for those formats: glb usdz fbx
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utopiah 21 hours ago
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?

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BenFranklin100 11 hours ago
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.
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junglistguy 15 hours ago
[dead]
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XR843 9 hours ago
[dead]
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themarogee 18 hours ago
[flagged]
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