In January 2022, the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet opened its first 3D exhibition: "La Chine des porcelaines du 9e au 18e siècle", Chinese porcelain from the 9th to the 18th century. The museum wanted a virtual exhibition worthy of its collections, free and open to all, on phone, computer or tablet, with no headset and nothing to install. Curated by Sophie Makariou, president of the museum, and Claire Déléry, curator in charge of the Chinese collections, a first-ever selection of some forty emblematic porcelains was brought together in a 3D space.
Socle scanned 36 works by photogrammetry, directly in the museum's storerooms: hundreds of high-definition photographs per piece, for textures up to 8K. Freed from display cases and barriers, visitors pick up the porcelains, turn them through 360 degrees and watch the light run across the glazes.
The exhibition space, 1,800 m² rebuilt, is inspired by the museum's ground floor and transforms it. It is rendered in real time on Unreal Engine: the light changes with the hour, the sound is spatialised and Paris weather, rain, wind or snow, appears behind the windows, fed live by the city's data. Three original scenes inspired by the decoration of the works punctuate the visit: a bed of flowers springing from the floor, a landscape of the plains of China spanning over 6 km², and a temple where a dragon prowls.
The exhibition can be visited freely or with an audio tour in French and English. Rendering is computed on a remote server and streamed at 60 frames per second: all it takes is a browser. It was the studio's first real-time browser experience, opened to the public on 12 January 2022.
Curators: Sophie Makariou and Claire Déléry, Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet. Design, scanning and development: Socle.
