Glad to see this getting exposure on HN. I gave a PyCon keynote [1] last year about how this was done. I've also put the image online in my own viewer [2], which has a few additional features: it encodes the viewing location in the URL and it allows for multi-pane synchronized views [3]. (Please be nice to my server.) I'm happy to answer questions here or on Twitter (@erdmann).
We have collected data in several imaging modalities: RIS-VNIR (reflectance imaging spectroscopy, visible and near infrared (380 nm – 950 nm) in 3 nm bands), RIS-SWIR (same, but from 900 nm – 2500 nm), UV-induced visible fluorescence, MA-XRF (macro x-ray fluorescence, which lets us make elemental maps for elements heavier than Al), structured light scanning to capture 3D to about 15 µm resolution, x-radiograph, and others. I'll release them in due time...
I went to the rijksmuseum when they were scanning it... sucked a bit but it's great that everyone on earth can see it in such glorious detail ! but that painting is so large in real life, I'd recommend anyone to go there and be amazed
Speaking of Rijksmuseum and seeing things in person, they maintain a small satellite exhibition at Schiphol airport[0]. It's a wonderful way to spend an hour if you're flying through and have long enough between flights to get bored but not long enough for even a short layover.
I agree! Never judge a painting without seeing it in person. A 2D replicated digital image, no matter the resolution, is not the same as seeing the brush strokes and paint layers or the size of the painting in person. Plus the colors & lighting will be different as well. Sometimes there is even an added benefit from the environment.
Of course, high res copies of these is a great thing to do as well. The above comment should take nothing away from that. They're just different things with different purposes.
Indeed! I grew up with my Dutch grandparents in Canada and they had a print of the Night Watch at home. When I turned the corner of the Rijksmuseum and saw it, I thought it was a post of the museum wing it was in. It's HUGE!
Is the painting's imagery public domain or does the museum have weird exclusive rights to licensing images for it?
Actually a more interesting question: Does this new image dataset fall under 'newer' copyright laws / rights and is it copyrighted for the next 80 or so years, or does it fall under the copyright law of the original image, that is, expired?
Perhaps it's intended to disambiguate it from the 20 µm resolution photo we released in May 2020 (the new one is 5 µm sampling resolution, so 16 times the pixel count). From the title alone one might dimly recall that past headline and assume it's a repost.
Three years worth of painting, that explains the extraordinary level of detail on things like the weapons well out of the central focus of the painting. WOW
Is an obsession with "originals" as quaint as our desire to walk on Mars, rather than sending robots?
My first reaction (after amazement) was to imagine a machine coloring in the cracks. The future will always see any effort in this direction as primitive. Why didn't we wait for their tools?
A full-scale reproduction, recreating the feeling of the painting when it was new, doesn't have that problem. I want a robotic setup that scans, and 3D prints elsewhere with paint.
Meanwhile, does the art restoration world place a premium on using dissimilar materials, that prevent further disintegration while fooling the eye, but are easily distinguished by future scanning techniques? I can imagine purists insisting on "authentic" materials that will be confused with the original painting in the future.
> Meanwhile, does the art restoration world place a premium on using dissimilar materials, that prevent further disintegration while fooling the eye, but are easily distinguished by future scanning techniques?
Yes - as I understand it, restoration involves careful use of solvents to remove old layers of varnish/added paint, followed by a new coat of varnish to protect the original underlying paint, followed by inpainting/overpainting (filling on cracks and/or painting over damage). This is done using materials that can be easily removed by future restorers without damaging the original. I imagine these layers would show up on a sufficiently high-res scan, too.
It's a great technical achievement, but i'm not sure I appreciate it any more by looking at these sorts of close up details. The overall composition, colours, use of light etc is where the beauty is for me, not the close up detail of how a button was painted.
Fair enough. Its utility is mainly for serving as a virtual microscope for conservation purposes. For example, here [1] is a lead soap [2] particle up close, here [3] is a very detailed view of the dog showing exposed canvas, and here [4] is some retouching from a past conservation treatment in the face of the main figure. These kinds of things help us to make decisions about future conservation treatments, help to document the exact state of the painting for future comparison, and help us to appreciate Rembrandt's mastery with paint (e.g. the unintuitive way he depicts lace [5]). All in all, it should give the public a greater appreciation of how much effort we put into collection care at a museum.
They work fine for me in FF 95.0.1 on Ubuntu, with adblock enabled (it's doing nothing on that page). Perhaps you have an extension that is not playing nice?
While high resolution 2D scanning is nice, I would like to see some specular and bump mapping. This would enhance the experience of viewing the works in VR.
If you zoom in all the way then then it almost becomes a landscape with craters and canyons. And the dark parts become pictures of distant galaxies. These details can easily be used as textures for a game.
Flying around in NightWatchPunk1642. Pre-order soon!
Interesting camera choice to be honest - slightly surprised they went with an bayer sensor+multishot to remove the interpolation vs. a mono sensor and a filter wheel or something for a project of this scale.
I wonder. Does a painter take into account how the paints dry and age when painting? Say, so that it appears at its optimum a year after it is finished as opposed to directly after finishing? Is there a purpose to do so?
Yes okay. I was thinking more along the lines of “this red fades quicker than this yellow. So if I want the picture to be in harmony in 2 years still I need to put in the red now a bit thicker. Even if that means that right after finishing it doesn’t look as they intended.
Incredible to see the detail on how he is using paint in various transitions and ways when you get up close. You can zoom all the way into where a pupil takes up my entire 1080p screen, amazing!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_hm5oX7ZlE
[2] https://hyper-resolution.org/Nightwatch5
[3] https://hyper-resolution.org/view.html?mode=trumpet&pointer=...