US Army wants 2.3 gigapixel camera for aerial surveillance
By Donald Melanson 
posted August 20th 2009 5:36PM
posted August 20th 2009 5:36PM
posted August 20th 2009 5:36PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
You should probably read quotes before you post them. That quote says 200 megapixels which could possibly upscale to 800 megapixels. That's still just a tiny bit more than 1/3 the resolution this article is talking about.
even the largest format film would never even come close to even a single gigapixel. it even says so in your wikipedia quote......
@cesium: Yeah, that was one of the things I thought would justify digital. Also - the fact that digital photography is a lot easier to manipulate.
@mark and @owdee : You should probably read a bit more before offering a counter argument. Film has surpassed the Gigapixel mark a long, long time ago. Both the U2 and SR 71 spy planes carried cameras with several Gigapixels. In fact, a group of people acquired the U2's camera technology and have 4 Gigapixel FILM Camera ( see their project here: http://www.gigapxl.org/project.htm )
So, you're wrong - film has long ago surpassed the 1 Gigapixel equivalence mark.
Alright, then you should have used that quote. I wasn't saying you were wrong, just that the quote you used didn't back up your argument.
I also said : " But then again, I'm probably wrong since I'm talking about consumer level photography equipment."
You attempted to compare an article about consumer photography to high-end surveillance photography. It is obvious one will be less advanced than the other.
Consumer level film cameras have more "equivalent" Megapixels than digital consumer cameras (DSLRs,etc). Whether or not this is true of surveillance cameras in today's world - I don't know. I'm simply stating that if consumer film is still ahead of consumer digital, it may be true of surveillance as well.
The whole film MP equivalency crap changes about every time you read an article about it. It just depends on if it's someone who is pro or anti-film writing it (and how much they like to BS).
The ones on the wiki article make it sound like that's what you *can* get from the highest grade film, which isn't exactly for consumers. You are not going to get 20 usable MP from any old cheap 35mm film camera, it'll be a SLR with expensive lenses (35mm/full frame DSLR's are around 22-25MP for the ones made the last year or two). Lenses between SLRs and DSLRs are pretty much interchangeable if you really want them to be, just with an adapter being used ($100ish for a good one), so it comes down to the cost of the camera and memory cards or film.
@(Unverified) Film!? What decade are you living in? I suppose you're still reading books printed on paper and wiping up your spills with paper towels instead of a Sham Wow.
*facepalm*
A 2.3 gigapixel can be achieved using multiple sensor at once (a big len) instead to try to create an (inexistent) ultradetailed sensor. It is the same principle used for create panoramic photos using a single camera.
Or in easy word, if you want to take a 6 megapixel photo you can duct-tape two iphone 3gs, then join the photos. Also you can repeat (and rise) 766 more times for to obtain 2.3 gigapixel picture.
At that point you're going to have major overlap between the different sensors unless you use a crazy narrow-angle lens(to the point that it will only see what is directly in front of the sensor)
"US Army wants 2.3 gigapixel camera for aerial surveillance"........
......how does it feel to want!
big brother is watching...
Yeah, seeing as how I live near one of the Army's major testing areas, I suppose now would be a good time to paint something obscene on my flat roof for their jollys.
I want to see the lens that can render that kind of detail more than the sensor.
It will probably only have 3x optical zoom.
What the hell is the point of zoom at that resolution?
It was a joke commenting on the fact that most consumer cameras have 8, 10, 12 megapixels but they almost all have 3x optical zoom, which is much more useful, while the extra resolution is superfluous for most consumers' needs.
you didn't mention the price?
when do they go on market??
I'm sure you can do terapixels like that too, but that's taking it to a whole another level. :)
If you wanna see what a gigapixel is like go to Google Earth, there's an option there to view gigapxl images. Not your average 200 buck camera :P
As for the army - they always want more... Consider how HUGE this image will be. Its several times bigger than the images from Hubble(at least the ones on their site). Kinda around 6.5GB per image(and 2/sec)... I doubt the army is gonna wanna lose quality, so even with a lossless compression its gonna be a lot :) You even need a couple thousand buck machine to view them.
"sixty-two square miles ... 0.3 meters"? Please, mixing US and Metric units is worse than using just US units. Thanks you. 62 square miles is about 160.6 square meters, by the way.
@(Unverified)
It's 160.6 square KILOmeters and 0.3 meter is about 12 inches
Someone please let me know when this thing will fly over my area so I can go to my backyard, and point my asshole towards the sky.
@JoeJoeJoeJoeJoe I'm sure there are easier ways to get a colonoscopy
I presume they mean near-infrared? No bloody way this will do true thermal imaging at that resolution!
The nasty thought is that the cops will eventually also get their hands on that stuff, dammit, tin hat? try tin umbrella, which also nicely protects against the painray and the stunguns.
The U.S. Army: Pouring your tax money down the drain.
It seems helpful to me.
Future drones will have better surveillance and will kill more terrorists!
Win, win!
@SiXiam or more targeted kills of civilians that are mislabeled as terrorists.
Imagine trying to download those digital watermelons...
@James2432
The Large Hardon Collider only moves 15 Million Gigabytes of data annually by comparison.
Though a large field of vision can be achieved by joining several smaller sensors, I'm sure the Army is also looking at having the ability to zoom even more (and perhaps from an even higher altitude) so they can see the the brand logo of the bad guy's wristwatch just as they are about to get predator-droned from the above...
"Yup, his Timex watch says it's 3:15:52pm... oops, well, it did"
@anantha92
Well, if you zoom close enough (and clearly enough), then you may even be able to read notes, maps, etc. even from 5 zillion feet away. I'd say that's a real tactical advantage.