Gigapixel. The photography, images and interactive virtual tours.

Comisiwn Brenhinol Henebion Cymru Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments

of Wales

Louise Barkerlouise.barker@rcahmw.gov.uk

A Gigapixel image is a digital image comprising billions of pixels (one billion pixels is 1000 times the information captured by a 1 megapixel digital camera) enabling you to view detail without the degradation you would see in a normal photograph

Current technology for creating such high-resolution images involves stitching together and rendering a mosaic of digital photographs to create a panorama.

A panoramic view of Penywyrlod Long Cairn, Talgarth, Powys comprising a mosaic

of 405 images.

Cynefin Project

Peniel Chapel, Tremadog: 360° Panorama

Gigapixel photography provides detailed photographic records on a landscape, site and artefact scale.

GIGAPIXEL PHOTOGRAPHY: HARDWARE and SOFTWARE

• Camera Mount (robotic or manual) that enables the camera to be rotated horizontally and vertically around the camera/lens nodal point.

• Camera anything from compact digital cameras, point and shoot and DSLR.

• Sturdy tripod, level and large **GB memory card.

GigaPan Epic series: Epic Pro

Kolor Autopano Giga

• For Stitching and rendering the image there are a number of different software options available and some free downloads: Photoshop, GigaPan stitch, Panoweaver, PhotoStitcher, Kolor Autopano Giga.

• Workstation rendering can be a processor and time consuming process. We use a HP Z210 workstation with 16GB Ram, 64 bit operating system and Intel Xeon 3.10 GHz processor.

Paris 26- Gigapixels - shot September 8th, 2009

www.paris-26-gigapixels.com

PARIS 2009: At that date the biggest assembled image in the world

• 2 Canon 5D Mark II (21.1MP) cameras.• 300mm with a teleconverter to get 600mm• Manual Focus• F13• ISO 800• Recording in RAW• 16GB compact flash• Custom-made panoramic head• Shooting time 5 hours

• Stitching 2346 photographs Autopano Giga• Final size panorama 354159 x 75570 =

26,763,795,630 pixels

• Rendering: Intel Server System SR2600UR (16 cores, 24 GB RAM, 1TB SSD)

• Rendering lasted 3 hours and 14 minutes

360 cities: London 320-gigapixel shot in 2012. At that date the biggest assembled image in the world

www.360gigapixels.com/london-320-gigapixel-panorama

• Panorama of London from the BT Tower

• Shot over a period of 3 days• Canon EOS 7D cameras• 400mm f2.8 IS II USM lens and

Extender EF 2 x III teleconverters• RODEON VR ST robotic panorama

head

• Comprised 48,640 images• Rendered over a period of 3 months

using a powerful Fujitsu Celsius R920 workstation

• If printed at normal resolution, the photo would be 98 metres long and 23 metres high.

Mont Blanc 365-gigapixel shot in 2015. The World’s largest photo……..for now

• Shot over a period of 35 hours over 2 weeks at an altitude of 3500m and -10°C temperatures• Canon 70D DSLR camera• Canon EF400mm f2.8 IS II IS lens and Extender EF 2 x III teleconverters• Clauss RODEON piXpert robotic panorama head

• Comprised 70,000 images (46 terabytes)• Rendered over a period of 2 months using a powerful Fujitsu Celsius R920 workstation

• If printed at normal resolution, the photo would be 98 metres long and 23 metres high.

ABERYSTWYTH 2016

• Panorama of Aberystwyth from Penglais Wood.• Canon EOS 700D camera.• 55mm focal length.• Camera Setting: TV (Shutter Priority) 1/200 ISO 400, Auto Focus.• Gigapan EPIC Pro panoramic Head.

• Shot over a period of 3 minutes.• Comprised 37 images.• Stitched and Rendered using Kolar Autopana Giga.• Rendered in 10 minutes using a HP Z210 workstation with 16GB

Ram, 64 bit operating system and Intel Xeon 3.10 GHz processor.• Creating a 300 dpi .psb file (photoshop big file) 2.4 GB in size.• Final size panorama 32978 x 8573 = 2,827,303,941 pixels• If printed the photo would be 2.61m long by 0.8m high.

ABERYSTWYTH

ABERYSTWYTH

Camera: Canon EOS 450DCamera Settings: Auto exposure (no lighting was used), aperture priority F18, ISO 1600; 35mm focal length; Manual fixed focus. Gigapan EPIC settings: 30% overlap of frames; with an estimated maximum shutter speed of 3.5 seconds on the camera, a 5 second time/exposure setting.Product: 351 images, taking 52 minutes to collect.Rendered file: a 300 dpi .psb file (photoshop big file) 7,978,845 KB in size (used for virtual tour)and taking 2 hoursArchive file: 3 GB tiff (jpegs can also be created).

Bethania Chapel, Maesteg: a 360° panorama of the ground floor.

CREATING INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL TOURS

One product that can be created from gigapixel images are Interactive Virtual Tours. We created 4 for the ‘Digital Dissent’ project www.welshchapels.org/

We use Kolor Panotour Pro. The software allows you to:•create and customise 360° views.•add hotspots and embeds sounds and videos, PDF files, pictures, websites.•share your virtual tours on all devices (computers, tablets, smartphones). •it is compatible with Mac, Windows, Linux

The final task is to ‘build’ your tour. Another processor and time consuming process. For each of the four chapels we aimed to create a product less than 800MB.

The end product is a .html file that links to a folders of tiles. Tiles are jpegs created from the Gigapixel panoramic image, that have been chopped into a series of smaller files. These are used and loaded as you zoom in and out of the tour.

http://www.welshchapels.org/bethania/tour/