[HN Gopher] Saint Peter Basilica digital experience
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       Saint Peter Basilica digital experience
        
       Author : matco11
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2025-01-16 22:31 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (virtual.basilicasanpietro.va)
 (TXT) w3m dump (virtual.basilicasanpietro.va)
        
       | gramie wrote:
       | The AI narration is annoying, with awkward pauses and occasional
       | mispronunciations. For example, it described the motto "urbi et
       | orbi" as "urb-eye e.t. orbee".
       | 
       | Movement is very jerky (maybe because of my old computer?) and I
       | was disappointed that I could only roam freely around the
       | wireframe model, not any of the photographic images. Because of
       | the jerkiness, it was sometimes hard to tell what part of the
       | architecture I was looking at.
        
         | owlninja wrote:
         | Instant mute for me...
         | 
         | As someone that is not very religious, it is still a site to
         | behold in person.
        
       | lostlogin wrote:
       | For any heathens like me, the history makes a lot more sense when
       | you know that Simon and Peter are the same person. It chops and
       | changes with no explanation.
        
         | rawgabbit wrote:
         | Jesus gave Simon a new name saying you will be the rock of my
         | new church. Peter is anglicized Petros or rock in Greek.
         | 
         | The story is that Jesus spoke Aramaic. He would address Simon
         | as Kepha. But the early gentile Christians wrote in Greek the
         | language of the educated.
        
         | TheFreim wrote:
         | > It chops and changes with no explanation.
         | 
         | The site provides the relevant information. In the "Story of
         | the Basilica" the first section is "The Life of St. Peter" and
         | it tells you why Simon came to be called Peter.
         | 
         | https://virtual.basilicasanpietro.va/en/st-peter-history
        
       | qwertox wrote:
       | The navigation in 3D-space is annoying. I do my fair share of
       | Three.js development, was very experienced in Maya, but I just
       | can't use this one here. Panning is on the screen's plane at
       | unbelievable slow increments, that I can't help but thinking that
       | someone made this for VR and only tested it there, I can't
       | imagine that a mouse was used during testing.
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | I mean, you could play Quake II in a browser, what, 15 years
         | ago? Interfaces like this are inexcusable today.
        
       | cbm-vic-20 wrote:
       | I am deeply disappointed as one of the few sites that has a Latin
       | translation, www.vatican.va does not respect my "Accept-Language:
       | la" request header, but instead provides a language selector UI
       | element that brings you to a special Latin section.
        
       | HelloUsername wrote:
       | Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42194587
        
       | JoeDaDude wrote:
       | The necropolis of Roman tombs, over which the Basilica was built,
       | and what is claimed to be Peter's Tomb, can actually be visited,
       | deep in the bowels of the Basilica. To do so one must sign up for
       | the Scavi Tour and book well in advance as only very small groups
       | are taken.
        
         | rawgabbit wrote:
         | I have been there. It was exceptionally dim/dark I couldn't see
         | anything. I know I was five feet away from the wall with a
         | niche where Peter's bones is.
         | 
         | The story was that the original church was built by Emperor
         | Constantine on top of Peter's tomb. When the basilica was built
         | about a thousand years later. Peter's bones were moved to its
         | current location a few hundred yards away.
         | 
         | This video gives a glimpse of the jeweled box and Peter's
         | bones. https://youtu.be/DhnJgAzSHD8
        
       | jimmar wrote:
       | I visited St. Peter's Basilica a few years ago. I highly
       | recommend it.
       | 
       | I had to exit the experience because my laptop (admittedly a few
       | years old) could only give me 1-2 frames per second. I love the
       | idea, but in the current state, viewing hi-res pictures would
       | give you a better experience than this virtual 3d tour, IMO.
        
       | akount45 wrote:
       | Unplayable on my computer. I think the textures take too long to
       | load. Most of the times I'm looking at jerky wireframes.
        
       | _orz_ wrote:
       | Interesting to read that a number of people struggle to view this
       | using their laptops while it works decently for me on an iPhone.
       | It makes sense and that comparison is meaningless, especially
       | when not given any specific specs, but still, I find this fact
       | fascinating.
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-18 23:00 UTC)