Chicago Museum – Public Access to Our Public Presence: Sharing Our API

https://www.artic.edu/articles/902/public-access-to-our-public-presence-sharing-our-api

by EntICOnc • 5 years ago

116 11 5 years ago

artic.edu

jrochkind1• 5 years ago

The Art Institute of Chicago. might make more sense in the title!

OldHand20183• 5 years ago

I logged in just to say that - the title really needs to be edited!

It’s one of the best art museums in the world! The entire museum is available in Google street view, by the way. With annotations for many of the paintings. Check this out:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8795817,-87.6233909,2a,75y,6...

wenc• 5 years ago

This is amazing.

I've sort of had the idea of building a museum web interface where you could walk through the space via an isometric view (sort of how adventure games worked back in the day), but this works well too. I'm amazed that the Art Institute would open up its exhibits like this. I just looked up the Met in NYC and they've digitized large swaths of their space too.

That said, I usually already visit the Art Institute about twice a year (I live in the city) and will likely continue to do so even though it's now on Google Maps. There's something immediate about seeing the works in person that makes it worthwhile to be present in the space.

60654• 5 years ago

Oh yeah, the Art Institute is amazing. The title really needs to be changed.

And that virtual tour is great! It really makes the miss going to the Art Institute. Looks like they might be reopening in a couple of weeks with reduced capacity - can't wait.

cozzyd• 5 years ago

Guess they've been busy while the museum is temporarily closed!

paulie_a• 5 years ago

Chicago in general has a really great open data initiative

https://data.cityofchicago.org/

doomlaser• 5 years ago

The Chicago Art Institute is a treasure. Large collection of the Impressionists, from Van Gogh to Monet, to post-Impressionist Seurat to Georgia O'Keefe. And that doesn't even scratch the surface. It's a great place to spend the day. Very cool that they're opening up their collection to the Internet, especially during a time like this.

Using our open API, people outside the museum have done some pretty awesome things, like allowing Alexa to browse our collection and creating a text message service that sends you a randomly selected Art Institute artwork. You can even add works to the video game Animal Crossing using the Getty’s Animal Crossing art generator. (Just click on Import using IIIF under Step 1. Manifest URLs can be found on our open-access artwork pages.)

I hope this inspires other museums to follow suit.

SergeAx• 5 years ago

That's a textbook example of introduction of API Gateway pattern. Great job from team!

Chicago Museum – Public Access to Our Public Presence: Sharing Our API

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