HP and National Gallery celebrate 10-year partnership

The National Gallery's Print on Demand service was launched in June 2003

HP and the National Gallery in London are celebrating the tenth anniversary of a partnership which has led to a variety of innovative projects.

The National Gallery attracts around five million visitors a year and has about 2,300 paintings on display, including works by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Monet and Van Gogh.

The most recent project with HP involved the creation of an ultra-high resolution digital archive of the gallery's entire collection.

"HP and the National Gallery have been working in partnership since 1998, collaborating on many successful projects helping to preserve and provide access to priceless works of art," said Huw Robson, co-director of HP Labs.

The pair have been involved in restoration and education, as well as the gallery's flagship Print on Demand service.

Other campaigns included ArtStart, and the Grand Tour which saw full-sized prints of well known paintings distributed around London's streets.

• VIDEO: HP and National Gallery launch 'Grand Tour'

Images in the digital archive are between 200MB and 300MB in size, forming a whopping 5TB in all.

To aid with research HP also created infrared, x-ray and ultraviolet shots of many of the art works, revealing sketches under the paintings and other phenomenon that could not otherwise be studied.

Currently underway is the development of polynomial texture mapping which allows researchers to get a better feel for the texture of the artwork and to study brushwork and other textural anomalies.

"HP solutions and technical advances have enabled the scientific department at the National Gallery to become more innovative with their imaging, printing and data management techniques," added Robson.

"At the same time HP has benefited from working with the creative and demanding teams in the National Gallery. It is a great partnership."

The National Gallery's Print on Demand service was launched in June 2003 and was the first in the world to offer visitors the opportunity to purchase A4, A3, A2 and A1 posters of any work in the gallery. A limited selection are available at A0.

Pictures are printed in a matter of minutes using special ink technology that dries instantly. To date around 40,000 posters have been sold and other galleries around the world are considering implementing a similar service.