I’ve been gigapanning….

What’s gigapanning? Well, you may or may not have seen the incredible picture from Barrack Obama’a inuguration. It is probably the most impressive panorama I’ve ever laid eyes on and for two reasons.

Firstly, the field of view is over 180 degrees, 194 to be exact, which means you get a real ‘being there’ impression of just what went on and how many people attended the ceremony.

Secondly and most importantly, this panorama was not the result of some incredible camera worth thousands of pounds or with an amazing fisheye lens. The photographer captured it using just a compact camera, taking 220 individual images at full zoom across the entire 194 degree field of view. He then stitched these images together to create a monster sized image. Because it’s made up of so many zoomed in images the detail is out of this world. (If you haven’t already checked out the link above and zoomed into the image please do so… you’ll be missing the point if you don’t) Part of the reason he was able to do this so easily and stitch the images together so well is because he also used a Gigapan system.

Now for the science bit. The gigapan is platform that you attach your camera to, you tell the system where you want the top let of your panorama to be and then the bottom right. The system then knows exactly how far to space out the individual images that will make up the panorama (based on some simple setup steps) and then starts to take the images for you. It’s a joy to watch. Went you get home, the gigapan software stitches the images together too.

So anyway… I’m ramblining here. The point is, after reading about it and picking my jaw up off the floor I deceided that I’d get one.

I’ve had some dire attempts, the Spire sticking out of the GPO and some sort of half bus, half car monstrosity stands out as being the most comical, but yesterday that all changed.

I went down to Sandymount beach and took 180 degree panorama. It consisted of 72 individual shots. The finished stitched image is 100 megapixels and the detail is incredible.

Click on the image below to see the image fullscreen and remember to use the zoom controls.

I’ve created a little video here that shows it in action. Sorry about the sound – it was very very windy.