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Largest Digital Photograph in the World

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-a-lot-of-bits dept.

thrill12 writes "Dutch research institute TNO has unveiled what it believes is the largest digital photograph in the world. The image contains 2.5 gigapixels or 7.5 gigabyte worth of data. It is composed of 600 single images shot by a computer-controlled pan-tilt unit in 7 second intervals. Afterwards, all photos where stiched together (compare: panorama tools) using the capacity of 5 high-end pc's in about 24 hours time."

8 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. And as a followup: by Opalima · · Score: 5, Funny

    They proudly introduce The World's Biggest Printer (and toner catridge)

  2. sigh by another+misanthrope · · Score: 5, Funny

    all those pixels and not one nipple! What a waste...

    1. Re:sigh by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, they had originally gotten together intending to take the world's largest digital picture of a girl, but the plan fell through when it turned out that none of them knew one.

      KFG

  3. For all non-photo geeks out there by xThinkx · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'd like to take this time to point out the lunacy of the 'megapixel' ratings for cameras

    A number determined from the multiplication of length and width in pixels of an image has about as much to do with the quality of a picture as the size of your passenger cabin has to do with the speed of your car. Yes, you can print larger pictures without seeing pixels if you have a higher megapixel count, but chances are it's not the resolution of your photos that you'll notice.

    A major factor in the quality of any image is the quality of the optics used to take it. That means the lens, the glass used to focus and point the image onto the sensor. Quality glass, such as low dispersion glass (I'm preferential to Canon's "L" glass) will create images with sharp edges, crisp focus, and good bokeh. Use cheap glass and you'll get the opposite. Effects like soft focus, purple halos, light leaking, and distortion will all still be present if you use poor optics, no matter what the MP rating. I wonder how many people have upgraded from a 3 mp to a 4, 6, or 8 mp camera and still found lackluster results.

    My point, a camera has many more features that determine quality than just the megapixel rating, when you choose one, consider these as well and you'll be happier. And here's a plug, dpreview.com does some awesome camera reviews (I'm in no way affiliated with them).

    --
    Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
    "
  4. New Title: by SnapShot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's rewrite that intro shall we?

    Most Boring Picture Ever Taken

    Dutch research institute TNO has unveiled what it believes is the most boring picture ever taken. The image contains 2.5 gigapixels or 7.5 gigabyte worth of pictures of the roof of some office park. It is composed of 600 single images shot by a computer-controlled pan-tilt unit that was incapable of actually viewing anything of any interest to anyone. Afterwards, all photos where stiched together using the capacity of 5 high-end pc's in about 24 hours time. Three graduate students died of boredom; services will be held somewhere exciting, like a morgue. Never have so many, downloaded so much, for so little...

    --
    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
  5. 11.3 Gpixel in my research lab by VDM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know it's risky (risk of slashdotting, of course...), however among the things I do for research there are also the so-called "digital slides", which are digital copies of pathology glass slides. We acquire them with a motorised microscope, at 40x magnification, which means about 0.3 micron/pixel. The maximum area acquired was about 21x45 mm, for a total of 28340 images, each one is 699x572 pixel (analog camera). This corresponds to about 11.3 Gpixels. Usually we remain well under this value, but anyway around 1-2 Gpixel on average.
    Please be very kind with our test server: http://www.telemed.uniud.it/eslides/.
    (anyway, I never thought this kind of things could become a news item).

  6. not impressed. by sxtxixtxcxh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i made the largest baby photo using 2500 digital photos each one at least 4.0megapixels in size and some as large as 6 megapixels.

    exposure started june 2002 and ended early november 2003.

    i used MacOSaiX to put it together on a two year old powerbook, and it took about 12 hours.

    it's not seemless, but the mosaic effect is cool.

    --
    for a minute there, i lost myself...
  7. Re:The Big Picture by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, if the Pythagorians are right I'm looking out my window at the largest digital picture in the universe right now. I laugh at your 10 gigs as I contemplate an image that requires all of the fundamental particles to store, and that's before we even get into the issues of storage media geometry.

    Scrolling seems to be a bit of an issue though.

    KFG