MCN 2026

Over the past decade, we’ve gone from 3D capture and display in museums being a difficult, niche offering to something our own visitors can do on their own. And yet, like all emerging technologies, we’re still bogged down by lack of standards, uneven literacy, ongoing technical progress, and resourcing challenges. As many institutions move beyond pilot projects, a key challenge has become how to operationalize 3D imaging as a sustained program—balancing workflow standardization, staffing, and long-term infrastructure needs.  

This panel will explore common threads, best practices, insights, and “what’s next” in 3D imaging. Each museum (Cleveland Museum of Art, The Met, and National Gallery of Art) will share the origins and intents of its program; key insights gathered from doing this work; and use-cases for 3D models. We will also touch on how institutions make decisions about what to scan, and how selection strategies evolve from individual highlight objects to more cohesive, comparative groups that better support research and interpretation. While this is not a technical panel, we will touch on some best practices such as ways to target wide distribution on the web vs sharing for pedagogical study vs scanning to aid conservation treatment and records. Since we are all art museums, we’ll discuss issues particular to art, including copyright concerns, whether one should scan 2D works, and the like. After brief presentations, we will have a panel discussion and invite questions and comments from the audience.  

Each museum on this panel has deep expertise in 3D imaging their respective collections and applying 3D to a wide range of applications. We also represent well-resourced museums, and we want to make clear to our audience ways others can build upon our work, without needing the same level of investment of people, time, and money and to reflect on how these approaches adapt and evolve as programs scale.