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Amazing Gigapan Image

Professional photographer David Bergman made this giant panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2009. Taken from the north press platform, it’s made up of 220 Canon G10 images. The original image size is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. This new version is 56,646 X 27,788 or 1.57 gigapixels.

To make the image, David clamped a Gigapan Epic Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from his photo position. The Gigapan Epic is a robotic camera mount that allows him to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to stitch together all of the images on David’s Macbook Pro, and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

Click on the image above, then use the controls to zoom and pan around the photo. You can also double click to zoom in and double click again to get even closer. If you zoom way in, you’ll note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not sleeping, President Bush is not sending a text message, and Oprah Winfrey is blocked by a camera tower. Look more closely and you’ll see Yo-Yo Ma taking a picture with his iPhone. David says he’s still looking for Waldo.

Posted on Feb 19, 2009 at 08:00AM by Registered CommenterDoug in , | Comments6 Comments

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Reader Comments (6)

I think the thing that makes this picture kinda boring is the blah sky. However the ability to take a picture like this and blow it up to the size of a bus is amazing!

February 19 | Unregistered CommenterRyan

I have stitched together 4 images to make a pano, but 220? That is totally amazing!

February 19 | Unregistered CommenterTodd E.

Who needs a picture of the inaugural the size of a bus?

February 19 | Unregistered CommenterJames

I can't even imagine!

February 19 | Unregistered CommenterMike J.

The point is that you can take great pictures you can blow up to giant size and still have great quality. Check out his website and see his other photos :)

February 19 | Unregistered CommenterSandy G.

Seems like something billboard makers might use. I don't see regular photogs needing this.

February 20 | Unregistered CommenterTeddy
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