The Open-Source Museum

NOTE: This is a prototype of a personal/educational project and will never be sold for profit. If you see this project elsewhere for sale or anyone asking for donations using this project, please let me know immediately.

CONTROLS

 Click on the replicas and the gray buttons to explore.

Rotate the replicas using your keyboard arrow keys.

See download instructions below if you are having trouble running the software!

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Human beings have been making and creating throughout our shared history. Whether intended for artistic expression or practical use, the objects we leave behind can tell us a lot about each other. Archaeologists, artists, historians, anthropologists and museum curators spend their careers observing and talking about material culture, but so do the craftspeople who make things, the workers who use them and the people who treasure them.

Think about your own daily life: what objects do you surround yourself with? What material are they made of? Did you make them yourself, or get them from somewhere else? As you explore these objects from the Ancient Egyptian Collection, build your observational skills and meet the people who made, used and cared for these objects.

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Welcome to The Open-Source Museum! This prototype was created as part of a Master of Arts Creative Work Project for the Museum Studies graduate program at San Francisco State University.  The Open-Source Museum is a custom-built software for museum collections and education. Created from scratch in Godot 4, Blender, and Reality Capture using high-quality photogrammetric scans of museum objects, it intends to diversify the dissemination of The Global Museum's Ancient Egyptian Collection for public and research use within international digitization frameworks and ethical best practices for the museum and cultural heritage field.  Archival provenance research and historical research on the objects precipitated the interpretation and collections catalog information included in the software. Interpretation follows the core principles of object-based learning within a museum context, and emphases on methods of engaging with the past through observation and exploration guided the interactive's visual and technical development. The scanned objects were chosen for their significance to daily life and manufacturing methods, with the intent to center their makers and provide context.

This is not intended to be the final iteration of this project. Rather, it is a starting point for developing new ways to engage learners of all kinds in cultural heritage and art. To learn more about The Global Museum or San Francisco State University's Museum Studies program, please visit https://museum.sfsu.edu/

Thank you!

Marley Townsend, M.A.

May 2026

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Background image credits:

Senet: Enoch Leung

Cairo: Dennis Jarvis

Tomb: Unknown

Fort: Katie and Joe Pangburn