Behold The World's Largest Photo Ever Taken Indoor: 40 Gigapixels of Awesome | Hacker News Reader

Behold The World's Largest Photo Ever Taken Indoor: 40 Gigapixels of Awesome

techcrunch.com

53 pointsJsarokin23 comments

Volume 15 and possibly volume 8 of the "Histoire Universell" are missing! I always suspected the universe was insufficiently documented. Now we have found the source.

(Look Northwest, first two shelf columns to the left of the doorway, 8th shelf from the floor. I'm going to make a note in my pivotaltracker blaming Jsarokin for today's velocity.)

Hi jws,

You can use the "share current view" button if you want to share the exact view of this :-)

Jeffrey

While not 40 gigapixels, I really loved this similar 360 of the Sistine Chapel http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

I had always known about the central image in the top of the Chapel but until this I didn't see that the entire room was so well done.

The photo is 40 gigapixels (40,000 megapixels); 280,000 x 140,000 pixels; made of 2947 images joined together; used a Canon 550D and 200mm lens; print size 23m x 11m; stitched file size 280GB [...]

Can someone shed light on what file format would use 7 bytes per pixel (280 GB / 40 Gpixel = 7 bytes/pixel) for something like this? Is it HDR, i.e. more than 24 bits of color?

Hi unwind,

This was the output filesize from the stitcher, it was PSB (photoshop large document) format.

I think it was so big because it saved the file with an alpha channel which was not entirely necessary in this particular instance. And with some further lossless compression I could probably get the file down to 100GB or so.

Jeffrey

I imagine the stitched file contains images for various zoom steps rather than just one very large photo.

I edited that bit btw, should be 40,000 megapixels.

For a weird, distorting effect, press control to zoom all the way out and pan around. It seems that it tries to put you're view point "behind" the actual camera location. Not sure if it's a "bug" or not, but it looks neat nonetheless.

Hi,

Oops! We forgot to limit the maximum FOV. you are referring to a field of view of 140º which is, yes, crazy! we'll switch it so that its' limited to 110º when you zoom out.

Incidentally, photos can be shown in many different projections. Rectilinear is the "normal" kind. For more fun, you can right-click on the panorama, and select other projections, including stereographic and little planet. these can show a much larger FOV and still look ok, because they curve some of the lines which makes the edges look not quite so "stretched".

There is also something called the "vedutismo" or "panini" projection, which was used a lot by renaissance painters. this can show a very large FOV but it keeps lines straight if they go to a vanishing point. you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlK075yE6g4 or on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/vedutismo/

I think it would be cool if they had a feature to save the location I zoom in. Given the level of detail that a photo like this offers, I might find something I want to show to someone with just a link.

We do. there is a button under the pano, "share current view". it gives you a link like this for example which goes to a zoomed in location in the pano: http://www.360cities.net/gigapixel/strahov-library.html?v=-3...

For something like this, why wouldn't you copy the user experience of Google Maps rather than make people learn a new pan and zoom behavior?

Hi drm237,

:-) Actually, we are using the "original" behavior used by QTVR which was the first implementation of interactive panoramic images on computers back in the 1990's. It is the paradigm that you are the camera, and you are moving your eyes.

The click/drag paradigm is good for maps, because it uses the analogy that you are grabbing and moving a map.

Anyway, this is a huge debate these days in the pano photography community. It seems that google streetview / google earth are somewhat winning at this point in terms of this type of navigation....

Someone needs to do this with a Pentax 645D. 40 Megapixels of medium-format goodness stitched together would look wonderful.

Other than awesomeness, what is most striking is that you can almost read the text on the covers of the books next to the people, which is way on the other side of the room. Pretty incredible. If only our eyes could see that well :)

More than you can see as an ordinary visitor, people aren't usually allowed in, you can just look out of the door back there.

Skip the TC bullshit and go to the source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/03/strahov-monastery-pan...

Or, perhaps, http://www.360cities.net/gigapixel/strahov-library.html

Wired's not the source, you extremely nice person you, the photographer is a friend of mine.

And please do go directly to the source, 360cities deserves it.

Hi Maukdaddy,

That's not very nice. Maybe I'll make a gigapixel image of your face after I give you a knuckle sandwich.

Just kidding. :-))

Seriously, there is no BS in the Tech Crunch article. If you want my direct thoughts on it, here is my blog post, which is a lot shorter than the Tech Crunch and the Wired articles.

http://blog.360cities.net/strahov-40-gigapixel-world-record-...

cheers, Jeffrey Martin

Threats of violence are not appropriate. Adding "Just kidding" does not help.

Hi Metageek,

I am slightly a slightly inappropriate person. My apologies.

http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/knuckle_sandwich

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