Wow, folks this is exciting news! Months ago I registered with the Global Connection Project (a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic) for possible inclusion in their GigaPan beta program – a piece of robotic photography equipment that takes GigaPixel panoramic photos using standard digital camera equipment. Well, I just got notification that my application was accepted and I’ll be one of the first people on the planet to get my hands on one of these babies! Yee-haw!
Here is a little description of the GigaPan straight from the Web site:
GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community.
What the heck does all this mean? Well, imagine looking at a digital photo and wanting to zoom in for more detail. You probably know that a 10 megapixel photo will give you pretty good resolution. Now just imagine 100 times greater resolution than that! No, wait! Don’t just imagine it – try it out yourself with the sample below! It reminds me of Harrison Ford’s character in the movie Blade Runner…
Click your mouse inside the photo, then you can use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out, and click and drag within the photo to move it around. If your mouse doesn’t have a scroll wheel, just use the zoom bar in the top left corner of the picture to zoom in and out.
Incredible huh? Well, that is what happens when you use a robot to snap a hundred or more zoomed in photos of a scene, then use special software to stitch them all together into one giant image. And now my GigaPan unit is on the way so I’ll be able to start trying it out when it gets here.
I sure wish I had this when I went to Denver, Hawaii, Greece, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and other places. But at least I’ll have it for future trips, and of course I’ll take a bunch of great panoramas to share with you guys.
Stay tuned for more panoramic fun!
When are they going to let others have an opportunity to use a Gigapan?
I’d say it is. Here’s a picture of my unit: http://ron.outcrop.org/images/Gigapan_unit.jpg
I suppose it depends on what sort of portability you’re looking for. I’m not sure I’d want to take it on a long backpacking trip, but anywhere you’d feel comfortable carrying a sturdy tripod I think the robot would be happy to follow.
PS How can I get that little cloud before the comment link on the blog? Is that Haloscan and Blog template?
I just spent a good 20 minutes looking at some of the examples at the Gigapan site. I assume Google will eventually have the whole world recorded in this format….then they will try keep it up to date in real time. :D
Thanks Ron. I saw the panoramas you have on your site. Very cool, and by the way I found the gnomes. They kind of remind me of Cartman from Southpark. Sort of chubby and round faces with the red hats…
I’m really excited to be getting a Gigapan! I love photography, and I’ve been taking panos with my D-SLR and a Nodal Ninja, but it’s really hard and manually labor intensive. I can’t wait to let the robot do all the work and have perfectly stitched photos.
I also tend to travel a lot and have seen a lot of cool stuff, from Paris to Hawaii… just wish I had it back then, but maybe it’s just a good excuse to go back. ;-)
Take care,
John
Welcome aboard, John! Looking forward to your Gigapans.
Wow that’s pretty awesome. Although I must admit that I did notice a little bit of an artifact when I zoomed in all of the way. Nevertheless, it does indeed feel like a movie or tv show where I can zoom in as much as I want and still see a clear image. Very cool!
I bet it will be really pricey when it is released for sale, though!
Can’t wait to see the shots from it John :)