A new digital partnership between the Deutsches Museum of Munich and Google means those interested in the museum's holdings no longer have to make the journey all the way to southern Germany. The deal makes the museum's natural history and technology holdings viewable by far more than the 1.5 million people who already visit the facility a year, says Wolfgang Heckl, the museum's general director.
To make the virtual tour, head to the Google Cultural Institute, where visitors can take a virtual tour thanks to Google Street View. Both special and permanent exhibitions are on display. And because the images are gigapixel in high definition, it's possible to zoom in and see the details. There's also plenty of background information packed in.
"We are in the middle of digitising our collection to make them available to researchers and those interested from all over the world," said Heckl. The process is already complete with 300 items.
To make it work, individual copyright owners need to give permission, says Jens Redmer of Google. Since that's not always possible, the entire exhibition will never be up online. The Google Cultural Institute has access to 500 facilities in 60 countries.