70-gigapixel panorama of Budapest becomes world's largest digital photograph
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 30th 2010 8:27AM
posted July 30th 2010 8:27AM
posted July 30th 2010 8:27AM
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Good for Hungary.
I'm gonna download that and fill my hard drive with 1 file! :)
@Pellinifool
yea I'm gonna group it was 170 million facebook account and upload it to the pirate bay
@Pellinifool
wonder how long it takes to open that file...
@Shorven
Who knows, maybe in a decade or two, our consumer cameras might have gigapixel sensors. Like that, we can start to zoom like Star Trek!
@Revolutionary
There would have to be a HUGE breakthrough in how we do optics.
@reallynotnick like this http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/10/switched-on-photography-is-dead-long-live-photos/ ?
they should take a photo of someones face, so you can zoom in and see their soul.
@Mr Hett
or their cell.
@Revolutionary
Many one day we won't have people hijacking the first post just to be noticed. Sigh. That day is not today. This post makes me guilty to
I'm just waiting for this to happen in 3D...
@Nikotine Dumb, a picture from infinity doesn't change in 3d! just view the same image with both eyes!
@Nikotine
We'd have to imagine how many terabytes that image takes up. We also got to start thinking about privacy implications at that point.
wow thats some amazing stuff :)
@DefPoet
In this case I'd say Revolutionary at least made the first post worthwhile...unlike the original idiot.
Now where's my gigapixel cell phone camera?
I remember seeing something like this in the news a couple months ago... maybe another city?
@xler8r
Prague, an 18 Gigapixel spherical panorama? Still very impressive: http://www.360cities.net/prague-18-gigapixels
@Wolfticket
Ah, yep, thazzit!
ugh. silverlight again. cause it only makes sense to use something that is supported (properly) for only 2 of the 3 main OperatingSystems out there. why in the world would you want to cover all 3
/eyeroll.
@webmastir I believe this is using Seadragon, which is Microsoft's, so of course it's going to use Silverlight. For super large photos like this I'm not sure if there is a viable alternative.
@webmastir Hmm, no love for me on Ubuntu here. Aren't there gigapixel viewers that use Javascript? Google maps anyone?
@webmastir In case you don't know, the photo is possible thanks to the deep zoom technology that Silverlight supports. If you have an alternative, suggest it. Don't hate.
@ckeledjian My alternative would be to use the Javascript framework that supports Google Maps. Like this:
http://www.xrez.com/boston_giga.html
@RincewindWiz Yeah, but I bet you noticed that the javascript version is far from smooth in the transitions, the panning and the zoom. You can see how it loads a new set of photos each time. Silverlight blends the sets seamslessly. If there is better technology why we should use the worst? Besides, you complain about having to download Silverlight, but Javascript engines, Flash, you had to download them too at the beginning, right? So between two technologies, I choose the best, and Silverlight, with Deep Zoom, Photosynth and soon Ambient Point Clouds (see link) is the best right now for enhanced photos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyiaAYrFrLM
@ckeledjian Technically, if you install a browser, you do have a Javascript engine. And if you use Chrome, you do have Flash built-in ;) However, I agree with you that it wouldn't be as smooth as Silverlight, as Silverlight is usually smoother than Flash and Javascript. It *would* be possible to do such a thing with Javascript, but it would require a lot of Ajax calls, and would be pretty slow and would use a lot more client/server resources. Microsoft should just release Silverlight to Linux (or even better, to AmigaOS *kidding*), but that won't happen soon enough.
@webmastir
your only options is
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
clearly if Linux had more marketshare in the consumer market, MS would port an silverlight engine for it, as they did for the mac. But until that happens, or if it happens, you're stuck with moonlight. I do not use it so I can't vouch that the seadragon technology of the official silverlight has been ported.
As a side note, I've generated quite a number of seadragon images.
Seadragon, or deep zoom as has been rebranded, also supports a javascript based output projects. However, as it is often the case with javascript, it is nowhere near as smooth and rich as silverlight for this sort of thing.
Ultimately the choice of output is left to the content creator and I can't blame them for chosing what looks and works better for the majority of users, in this case that happens to be using the silverlight based engine.
But I would like to see a 1st party implementation of silverlight for linux but only so that it may someday be easily ported to android OS.
@LSE Moonlight is NOT an option. Since it's always a version behind silverlight NOTHING works on moonlight.
Enhance, enhance, enhance!!!
Well that's my bandwidth gone for the month so!
Do I win a prize for spotting the added-in-post-production 'Microsoft, Sony, Epsom' billboard?
@Dapple Where?!
@Dapple There's also a 360 World one
@Dapple I saw that too. Nice digital alteration. I was zooming in all over the place to see if I could spot some Hungarian hotty and found the billboard instead.
See if you can enhance the reflection on that screw on the license plate of that SUV driving down the high street in the town on the left.
Where is Waldo?
@vapore0n After an entire childhood of, "Where's Wally?", "Waldo" just sounds wrong...
This is just pure wild animal crazy....
Still doesnt beat my D5000 :D (or maybe it does... a litte bit)
what? no 'right click' 'save as' option?
@thoraudio LOL I would love an answer to this question too!!...I'd love this as my laptop wallpaper =)
Couldn't they take a picture of someplace more visually interesting, like Antarctica?
Someone should check if this camera also stole your wifi data whilst shooting.
@Revolutionary
I can see the instruction manual now:
"Point camera at correct hemisphere of planet, press shutter release button. Crop to fit."
technology at its finest
First thing I zoomed in on was, by pure chance, a golden retriever convening with nature. Anyone fancy a game of Where's Fido?
Where is the download link. laugh
I have a 1TB HDD it will probably take a month to download.
Great picture.
Shame they used a camera that has a sub par noise to ISO ratio to other cameras in the same category/price range from Canon and Nikon.
Isn't Microsoft's picture of the night sky the biggest?
It's only a terrapixel.
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-07/microsoft-creates-clearest-biggest-night-sky-map-yet
Looks like the last picture i took on my Evo ;)
Budapest is so beautiful and a brilliant city to visit - would recommend it to anyone. The only place where chips, coleslaw and gurkin is ate for breakfast!
I stayed in massive cylinder shaped hotel with wicked views - looked like a big barrel of beer!
@Mobile Broadband
eaten