Upon entry, each visitor will get a black pen, equipped with a small amount of computer memory, a tiny radio for short-range communication and a touch-sensitive stylus, which can be used to write and draw on large interactive tables with touch-screen surfaces. The digital pen is one ingredient in the redesign of the museum that is intended to “give visitors explicit permission to play and to explore the process of designing for themselves,” said Sebastian Chan, director of digital and emerging media at Cooper Hewitt.

One place they will be able to do that is in an “immersion room.” In the room, a person can, for example, tap the pen on one of many selections from the museum’s wallpaper design collection. That wallpaper is then projected clearly throughout the room. “You can see and experience historic wallpapers in ways you never could before,” Mr. Chan said.

A visitor can also draw his or her own wallpaper design on an interactive table. As the person is drawing, clever software can detect common images, retrieve relevant information and communicate, in its way, with the visitor. “It looks like you’re drawing a flower,” it intones, and then links to a short audio recording by an expert on flower motifs in wallpaper over the years.

In another area, visitors can use their pens to annotate the designs of common objects — a shopping cart, for example — with features of their imagining. One shopping cart might be designed for a family of four, while another is for a wheelchair-bound shopper. “It’s a visual suggestion box to make things better,” Mr. Chan said.

At the Smithsonian Institution, 3-D technology is increasingly used for conservation, research and public education programs. The fine-grained scanning allows a depth of data collection and analysis that was not possible before. The gunboat Philadelphia, built in 1776, is the last surviving cannon-bearing American vessel from the Revolutionary War. The historic boat has been 3-D-scanned so online viewers can see it from angles not possible in person at the National Museum of American History in Washington. But it is also scanned regularly so conservators can get early warnings of deterioration of the old wooden structure.

The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has two life masks of Abraham Lincoln. The masks — made from plaster casts placed on Lincoln’s face — were made in 1860, the year he was elected to his first term, and in 1865, two months before he was assassinated. The Smithsonian staff has 3-D-scanned the life masks, and the data is available for downloading and printing on a standard 3-D printer. Schools across America have done just that.