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26 Gigapixel Photo Sets New World Record

Posted by timothy on from the stock-up-on-flash-memory dept.

FrenchSilk writes "The largest gigapixel photograph ever created with a DSLR camera was made by A.F.B. Media GmbH in Dresden, Germany. 1655 images, each 21.6 megapixels in size, were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 400 mm lens over a period of 176 minutes. The images were stitched on a 16 processor system with 48GB of main memory, taking 94 hours to create the final result. The interactive view can be found here."

30 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Woop de freakin do by GigaHurtsMyRobot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you can't take it all in at once, what's the big deal? Wouldn't Google earth have the largest 'photo' since it has an interactive view of the entire globe stitched together?

    1. Re:Woop de freakin do by Romancer · · Score: 5, Informative

      I second the motion to call shenanigans.
      This is not a gigapixel photo, this is a gigapixel collage.

      --


      ) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
      ) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
    2. Re:Woop de freakin do by David+Gould · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm still enjoying the phrase "largest gigapixel photograph". I'm not sure how it compares in size to all the regular gigapixel photographs. But no doubt it's much bigger than the smallest gigapixel photograph.

      In other news, a ton of bricks actually does weigh more than a ton of feathers.

      --
      David Gould
      main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
    3. Re:Woop de freakin do by skirtsteak_asshat · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, brace yourselves, this is the worlds BIGGEST GOATSE PRANK ! Do not be rick-rolled like those insensitive clods over in soviet russia. Or whatever.

  2. Slashdot effect by EEPROMS · · Score: 4, Insightful

    in 3...2..1

  3. Google Earth by HateBreeder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If we're gonna stitch photos together, i think Google Earth is probably by far "higher-resolution" than this.

    Show me a SINGLE image sensor that can do 26GP and i'll be impressed!

    --
    Sigs are for the weak.
    1. Re:Google Earth by cmiller173 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course it will still be attached to a consumer phone with a shitty little lens in front of it.

      FTFY

    2. Re:Google Earth by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is a 111 MP single sensor camera that just got installed on a telescope. There's not a whole lot of point though. It's easier, cheaper and more reliable to create a multichip camera like the 1.4 GP camera installed on one of the telescopes in Hawaii. It's still one camera though, and takes the whole 1.4 GP in one shot.

    3. Re:Google Earth by HateBreeder · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Read about CMOS Active Pixel Sensors:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_pixel_sensor

      The size is dominated by the transistors, the photo-diode shares the same feature size are the transistors since it's manufactured under the same process.

      Moore's law applies.

      --
      Sigs are for the weak.
    4. Re:Google Earth by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not in astronomy. Film and digital sensors respond to light in different ways. Digital sensors are MUCH more sensitive than film is, but much of that sensitivity is unusable in a regular camera because digital sensors also experience much higher levels of noise than film does.

      So if you're shooting regular landscape, portrait, whatever, you might well be right. But in astronomy that extra sensitivity actually buys you something.

      Most astronomical pictures you see are the result of long exposures, from seconds to weeks. With a digital sensor you can capture even very faint objects by taking lots of short exposures and then averaging them together. That gets you a bunch of advantages, such as being able to salvage data if something happens halfway through, exposing over multiple nights, and taking a LOT of pressure off your tracking apparatus. It's much easier to accurately track a target over a short exposure (and align the images afterward) than it is to keep up accurate tracking over an entire, long exposure.

      If you tried the same trick with film you simply wouldn't be able to image dimmer objects because they'd fall below the base sensitivity of each exposure.

      There's a reason astronomers were some of the first to use digital cameras, and that amateur astronomy was revolutionized by them.

    5. Re:Google Earth by Arthur+Grumbine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Read about CMOS Active Pixel Sensors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_pixel_sensor

      The size is dominated by the transistors, the photo-diode shares the same feature size are the transistors since it's manufactured under the same process.

      Moore's law applies.

      I have printed out that last post of mine and am chewing on the paper as I type this. Interesting to note, though, is these two articles discussing the upper limits of pixel count due to diffraction. Looks like we're not gonna see a 26 GP camera after all, even with Moore's Law applying.

      *chokes on mushy pulp*

      It's a moral victo-- AACCKKK-*gulp*...ahem, victory.

      --
      Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
  4. megapixels? by StripedCow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    bah, megapixels mean nothing...

    what about signal to noise ratio, dynamic range, plenoptic capabilities, etc.

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  5. lolcats by tholomyes · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and 20 minutes later, the world's largest lolcat was created. ("i can haz gigapixelz?")

    --
    When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
  6. Actual Largest Photo by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Legacy Project, they converted an old hanger into a pinhole camera.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:Actual Largest Photo by John+Whitley · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's not just photographs. This is a problem when generally when a medium is applied to a primarily technical aim (e.g. breaking a record) vs. an aesthetic one. The best example of this I've witnessed was during my freshman year of college, when a music department Prof. had the class listen to the first public recording of tape loop reverb. IIRC, it came out of MIT. The recording was performed on the recorder (the woodwind instrument) by the then-current department chair.

      Now try to imagine sounds that would make Vogons would tremble in simultaneous delight and terror at this, and admit in defeat that their poetry is no equal. I can't recall hearing a brilliant rendition of anything on the recorder. Now combine that lackluster sound, with a /cough/ less than virtuoso performance and a good mangling by those first doozy steps into studio-created reverberation.... bleaaargh!

  7. in the office by ravenspear · · Score: 2, Funny

    AFB Media Exec: Hey IT guy, can our server handle the load if I post a 26 gigapixel image to slashdot?

    IT Guy: Of course it can, we run BSD, which as you know, is not....

  8. Largest Image Sensor by HenryKoren · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some related knowledge: The largest Image sensor (that I've heard of) is part of the "Large Synoptic Survey Telescope" in Chile and it weighs in at 3200 Megapixels

    http://www.megapixelmyth.com/?p=127

    Shameless plug: check out my blog at megapixelmyth.com

    --
    To blog is sublime
  9. Re:Naked women by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's not a naked woman, that's Waldo.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  10. Re:Honestly? Goggle Traslate impressed me more. by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ditto that. I read the first few sentences without a problem, until I hit the part where they talk about pixels (picture elements). I couldn't figure out why the grammar and parentheses were that screwed up.... until I accidentally moused over a sentence with a Google pop-up asking me to improve the sentence. Only then did I realized I was looking the Google Translate page of the actual German page.

    Hot damn. Automated language translation has come a long way.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  11. CSI style zoom!!! by syousef · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you can't take it all in at once, what's the big deal?

    Finally a photo that works like photos do on CSI when it comes to zoom!

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:CSI style zoom!!! by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 4, Funny

      Now all we need are criminals who will stand still for 176 minutes so we can get a good shot of them.

  12. Re:Actual Picture? by SEWilco · · Score: 4, Funny

    Doesn't matter. They left the lenscap on.

  13. I am on dialup! by fotoguzzi · · Score: 3, Funny

    (you insensitive clods.)

    --
    Their they're doing there hair.
  14. Boring by krray · · Score: 3, Funny

    I couldn't find one person in a compromising position or act.

  15. Messed up stitching... by CannonballHead · · Score: 2, Funny

    They messed up the stitching... that of someone invented a camouflage car.

  16. Re:Is it really impressive to stich a pic together by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Stitching many images to form one big picture is challenging in many ways: First you need the camera and lens to capture enough detail. With a 400mm lens, it took a 21MP camera to get that much data. If you've ever tried to shoot a crisp 21MP picture at 400mm, you know that even just one of these 1655 photos is an achievement. Then you need the hardware to shoot these pictures in quick succession: The photoshoot took them three hours. During that time, the sun moves, shadows move, the color of the sky changes. The faster you can shoot the pictures, the better the result will be. The banding in the picture is a result of "only" shooting one picture every six seconds. You can't shoot to flash memory cards either, because they're going to be full all the time and you don't have the time to change them, so you need a camera which can shoot directly to a computer. Then you have lots of images on your hard disk and you need to stitch and blend them. Off-the-shelf panorama software is optimized for small numbers of pictures, so you have a couple of problems to solve on that front too.

    That said, personally I think that that resolution is too much. Due to the way these images are created, they don't work at all for even moderately dynamic views, they're always full of artifacts from the light change, they usually look quite dull when zoomed out and the interesting bits are lost in a vast desert of pointless detail.

  17. Re:Is it really impressive to stich a pic together by icebike · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Due to the way these images are created, they don't work at all for even moderately dynamic views, they're always full of artifacts from the light change, they usually look quite dull when zoomed out and the interesting bits are lost in a vast desert of pointless detail.

    Pointless detail?

    Detail was precisely the point of the image.

    Further, simply because you have no immediate use for this detail does not mean its pointless and certainly not a desert. Its all still there when you zoom back in.

    The detail on the facade of a building does not cease to exist just because you get in your car and drive a mile away.

    This is an attempt to record that. To have the naked eye view and the telescopic view in one set of images.

    The practical applications of this seem rich, if we can just get past our little self centered world view that suggests just because you can not experience every level of detail simultaneously, that, therefore none of it is warranted.

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  18. here's a real gigapixel photographic image by BetterSense · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/imviaduct.htm

    Large-resolution image taken with an 8x10 camear. A large format film camera (100+ year-old technology) can squeak out very high resolutions. Arguments abound as to the megapixel equivalent of film, but if a 35mm camera is about 20 megapixels then by my calculations a 8x10 camera is about one regular old fashioned gigapixel of resolution.

  19. Re:Naked women by dfm3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So you mean she's not naked.

    (typing this while sitting at my computer naked, except for khakis, a pair of boxers, and a t-shirt.)

  20. Re:Shadows by FiloEleven · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They actually captured the same two people twice! There's a grassy patch near the lower right of the image that contains two bright red flags. Zoom in on those, then pan up and to the right to the sidewalk. There's a column with ads on it and some people walking to the left and right of that. Two of them are clearly doubled. I hope they get to see themselves.

    I don't care about the headline or the record. I think it's a neat image in its own right.

    --
    Your brain is not a computer.