Google planning expansion to Art Project

Google has promised that its Art Project, unveiled this morning at the Tate Britain, won't stop at the 17 museums it has on board.

Speaking at the event with TechRadar in attendance, Nelson Mattos, Google vice president of product management and engineering for Europe said "Our vision is to create a valuable tool for art lovers.

"Where some museums only have one or two rooms mapped, we intend to add more in the future.

"However, we don't have a specific time line for the Project - we want to see over the next few months how it will be used. Like with our other projects, we want to see people's reaction.

Teachers or art lovers?

"If teachers and professors are the ones that really use it, then we need to see how we can make it easy for them to create collections. If it's artists or art students, then it's different; we need other features, such as showing how the art is created."

Mattos also said that Google is planning to expand the amount of pieces subjected to the gigapixel treatment to allow more users to get closer to the art they love, as well as expanding the galleries.

Google had to use custom-made bicycles and trolleys to achieve the indoor 360 view; using the same technology from the cars, but also surviving without the GPS abilities the outdoors scenario offers.

TechRadar managed to snap a picture of the technology in question - we can only thank whoever that we didn't have to spend hours pushing it round some of the largest galleries in the world's biggest cities.