Around The Mall: The Wright Flyer, the legendary aircraft built by the Wright Brothers and sent skyward over Kitty Hawk in 1903, was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1948. Since then, it’s been on public display nearly continuously.
Of course, visitors aren’t allowed to touch the plane, and educators teaching lessons on the Flyer have had to use models to give students the chance to handle it and see it from different positions. Engineers and historians have faced similar limitations, unable to climb inside to examine its inner machinery or take out a tape measure to assess its specs.
3 comments:
I feel like the accessibility of these 3D animations takes away from the museum experience. There is now no need to go to the museum to see the object if you can just sit in your chair and look it up on the internet. Even though we can now look at the object in 3D, you still can't touch it. The models at least allowed you to touch it. This world really is turning to the point of no return where humans will live their lives in front of the computer screen and eventually never have to move from that spot. All bodily necessities will be taken care of at the touch of a button. No need to get up; just tap the food icon at the bottom left of your screen.
This is one of the coolest things I've seen since I woke up this morning. The ability to examine, up close, historical artifacts while hundreds of miles away from them is absolutely awesome. While I agree with Kristen when she says that it is nowhere near to the museum experience, this new technology will allow students and researchers alike to explore our history in a new way. I, for one, spent a good five minutes orbiting around a model of Abraham Lincoln's head.
I wonder how long it will be before we can download these 3D images of these pieces. I wonder if soon we will have something like the google 3D warehouse. Imagine being able to import objects into your scenic design that are the actual item from the Smithsonian collection. I agree that the 3D models will never replace the actual objects but research will be much easier. It is a cool initiative and I like it.
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