A small nonprofit has opened the first wing of Museum of Ages, a free digital museum dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci. The virtual tour features 17 stops covering his works and his last house in Amboise, which has been rebuilt in the later stops of the walk.
Visitors can view his paintings close to their real size, explore 15 of his machines rebuilt in code, and examine 29 of his anatomy sheets. A virtual reading table presents 207 of his manuscript pages, which can be mirrored to read his writing, and 131 of those pages have been translated. The museum is available in seven languages.
Each stop carries one of four grades: documented, reconstructed, conjectural, or not known. A detailed view lets users examine the sources behind each element. The rooms and machines are built with Three.js and run on WebGPU, with WebGL2 as a fallback. Textures come from Creative Commons Zero (CC0) photo scans, and a few small objects use free CC0 3D models.
The project's stated mission is to make museums accessible to people who cannot visit in person due to illness, disability, cost, or distance. The walk is pre-rendered so it runs on older phones and is easier for older users. The code is released under AGPL-3.0, and the texts and pictures under CC BY-SA 4.0, with reproductions carrying their own licenses.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing