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Budapest Panorama, at 70GP, Now the World's Largest Digital Photo
hasanabbas1987 writes "It's just been a few months since a 45-gigapixel panorama of Dubai claimed the title of world's largest digital photograph, but it's now already been well and truly ousted — the new king in town is this 70-gigapixel, 360-degree panorama of Budapest. As with other multi-gigapixel images, this one was no easy feat, and involved two 25-megapixel Sony A900 cameras fitted with 400mm Minolta lenses and 1.4X teleconverters, a robotic camera mount from 360world that got the shooting done over the course of two days, and two solid days of post-processing that resulted in a single 200GB file — not to mention a 15-meter-long printed copy of the photograph for good measure. Of course, what's most impressive is the photo itself [Note: requires Silverlight]."
This is probably a beautiful photograph that I will never see because of the technology chosen for the presentation layer.
All that processing, and couldn't create a Flash viewer for it?
If someone shoots a 70GP picture and no one is able to view it, does it matter at all?
Lets make sure that this discussion focuses on the fact that they presented it in Silverlight and not the open and saintly Flash format. I don't want to veer offtopic here into discussing "gigapixels" and "robotic camera stands". That's not what this site is about.
You know the platform is bad when people refuse to install it on principle.
This becomes considerably less impressive when you realize that this image is done with sponsorship from major partners, whereas images like the Dubai picture, or the 50 Gigapixel image in Vienna were both done by individuals.
Check out the 36th house on the left, if you zoom in enough you can just about see a quarter of a boob through the half opened window. Not enough mega pixels to see if its a female or male booby though :(
oh, and half of it is sky which doesnt really count. While this is the case with the other two i mentioned, it is not so with the 67 Gigapixel image of Corcoado
OMG, Tribalism
Lets make sure that this discussion focuses on the fact that they presented it in Silverlight and not the open and saintly Flash format.
Nobody likes Adobe Flash (excepted for Apple bashing time).
We now have HTML5.
However Flash is an important legacy format that we can't yet ignore (especially when all major browsers don't support HTML5 yet).
Silverlight became legacy before ever gaining significant marketshare. Why should we care ? Also, as pointed by blirp, it's not really cross-platforms.
Therefore, expect the same kind of off-topic threads that we get with paywalls or slashdotted links. No access to the material implies random off-topic discussions.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
And the ability to zoom in to certain views was pretty awesome. If Ansel Adams were alive today, I wonder what his opinion would be and if he would use such a technique. He would have ot do something. Many of the films he liked to use are no longer in production - at least in the 4x5 format he liked.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Anyway, you don't want to install Silverlight.....
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The idiots behind the site are using OS detection, so if you're using Moonlight on a non-Windows/OSX platform, you'll need to spoof your User-Agent string.
Other than that, it works just fine with Firefox & Moonlight on Linux.
If it were Ditto, it would be blue and smell like alcohol. Geeze!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
nice picture, BUT why they used Silverthing? there are much more interesting opensource tools like iipimage ( http://iipimage.sf.net/ ) that they work in javascript, flex and even java! Anyway, I had to use a friend computer to watch the image :)
OMG, Tribalism
Didn't the almighty Shuttleworth just tel us about the linux version of that? Apparently Microsoft made their own version for Windows users. I'm sure they'll tweak a few things, make it completely incompatible with Linux, and then brand their 'improved' version Microsoft Factionism.
There's no place like
"This is probably a beautiful photograph that I will never see because of the technology chosen for the presentation layer."
Great. Do you want a cookie? The only thing you've accomplished is to not see the picture. Nobody else really cares.
I don't respond to AC's.
Silverlight *is* cross-platform, the problem is the website in question is sniffing out OSes other than Windows and OSX/Intel, which is stupid but not a technical problem, lest of all Moonlight's.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
How does your post advance humanity, or even technology, in a meaningful way?
Practice what you preach asshole.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
It's fine if they want to use Silverlight, but from what I can tell (maybe I'm wrong) they are only relying on the Web browser's useragent string to check if it can run the application. With the latest release of Moonlight installed on FF/Ubuntu, the default response I got from the website indicates I need to have Silverlight on Windows or Mac. If I switch to an IE8 useragent string (using useragent switcher), it then tells me I need Silverlight 3. I then tried switching to a useragent setting for FF on Vista, and all of a sudden it thinks I'm okay.
That's pretty lame in my opinion...it's fine to have a warning (although Moonlight already does that for you), but to assume the client browser can't handle the application without actually validating feature support, or at least providing the user with an option to try anyway is not all that friendly.
Those are formats for executable content. I thought this was just a freaking image. Why not an image file format?
It is a zoomable image so it only downloads greater detail for the part you've zoomed in to.
I can almost see all the pr0n being filmed in the windows....
The first Browser ever was released December 23, 1990.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Enhance.. Enhance.. Enhance..
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
All major browsers support HTML5. What major browser doesn't support HTML5?
They haven't agreed upon a video codec, but that's a different thing, and not exactly part of the HTML5 spec.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
The fact that some guys reverse engineered the project and built an alternative doesn't mean that a patent-ridden windows-only piece of shit like shiterlight is cross-platform.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I can zoom and pan just the same in Google maps with a satellite photo. Is it that it was done in a single exposure? That seems irrelevant.
So what is the point of making images this big in the first place? They didn't create an image, they created data for a specific application that not everyone can run and a lot more would rather not run for security reasons. What we need is a well defined and open protocol for fetching the images as needed in little squares. Maybe HTTP. If we get that, then we'd only need Javascript and maybe we could even view the landmasses of the Earth that way.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I was disappointed in it because of the location they shot from. It's taken from János hegy. Although this is the highest point in Budapest, it is so far from the city itself that there isn't much to see.
There is some waffle on the page about why they chose that point. They say it is the highest point and that the observation platform there will have its 100th anniversary in September. But then there is mention of the support and cooperation that they had from the district council for that district of Budapest.
So presumably the authorities responsible for the other more reasonable vantage points were less cooperative.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
The point is to make the image as large as possible. Sometimes the goal is the reason. I doubt they said,"Let's make an image that we can distribute with Silverlight." they probably chose Silverlight because it allows you to see the entire image without having to actually download the entire image all at once.
Waldo is waving at you from a window.
I have nothing against Silverlight. The photo is actually quite cool to navigate. I am guilty, however, of refusing to install Quicktime or iTunes or any of THAT noise.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Maybe you're already too late.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Nobody likes Adobe Flash (excepted for Apple bashing time).
And everybody loves Apple bashing time! -QED
(someone really needs to make an "Apple Bashing Time" song...)
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
So where is the installer for Silverlight for my Ubuntu PC I am posting this from?
It seems like Google Earth qualifies as a much larger "picture".... continuously linked pixels creating a visual representation of reality resembling that which you would see if you looked with your eyes.
Define "picture" or "photograph" as you will... many map databases integrate images to create images that are vastly larger and more interactive.
I'm no anti-MS zealot, but even I won't install Silverlight. For anything. OK... if YouTube stopped working then I probably would; but that's not happening. Give it up, guys. I don't need any more of that kind of crap on my machine.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Count 5 parachutists!
Bah! I liked it and I guess I had silverlight installed. Some drunk night? Anyways, I think the picture is pretty cool. Makes me think I am in some movie crime lab and can zoom in to read a license plate on a car I could not see to begin with. Well of course I still need my depixelator.
If the technology in question was like a Ferrari - rare, expensive, and available only to a few... you'd have a point. But the technology in question is more like a Kia - widely available and relatively cheap.
The only way not to be able to view is to be in one of two minorities.
The first are those too poor to afford a computer able to view the image. (Which by your own admission you are not - because if you bought a copy of Windows you admit to being able to set it up.) I'll give and grant this minority, unlikely to be present on Slashdot, has no choice in the matter.
The second minority (and the one prevalent on Slashdot) is those who choose to run an operating system other than Windows. They made their choice (for whatever reason) and now must live with the consequences.
Which minority are you in?
Let this thread be an homage to utter stupidity
Or even just a reduced image that you can click on to get a magnified portion. Doesn't even need JavaScript.
trashy products on the web! We already have to deal with flash!
http://pastehtml.com/view/1acy1f2.html And then tell my why that green transmission tower is pasted into someone's backyard??