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20 gigapixel, 360-degree panorama of Wembley Stadium is among world's largest, most detailed
Jeffrey Martin is a busy man. Having already shot an 80 gigapixel panorama of London's skyline and a 40 gigapixel peek inside a Czech library, he has now turned his attention to England's hallowed Wembley Stadium. The recently rebuilt home of football served as the stage for a new 360-degree panorama, shot during the FA Cup Final this Saturday, which spans 10 20 gigapixels in total and has been made available online at the source link below. Recording was done using a DSLR mounted to a custom robot rig that would continually pump out imagery to an equally exclusive Fujitsu workstation equipped with 192GB of RAM and 24 processing cores. All that grunt was used to automatically stitch more than 1,000 high-res images together, earning the finished product the honor of being one of the world's largest 360-degree sports panoramic photos. Give the source a bash to tag yourself if you were at the Final or to check who else was there. [Thanks, Adam] Update: We originally had this at 10 gigapixel, going from information on the FA's website, but it turns out to be a 20 gigapixel pic. Its claim for being the largest sports panorama may actually be disputed by Essendon FC in Australia, who managed to pull together a 20 gigapixel image of their own at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in late April. You can see that jumbo pic here, or check out a couple more from Daytona and the NCAA Final Four this year.
World's largest indoor photograph shows off fancy old Czech library
If you think Google's seven-gigapixel renderings of world famous art museums are impressive, get a load of this: a guy named Jeffrey Martin just produced a record breaking panoramic photo of a reading room in Prague's Strahov monastery library, and it's got the internet giant's Art Project beat by more than 30,000 megapixels. Not that Google's pictures are anything to scoff at, but the 40-gigapixel, 360 degree, 283GB image is something of a digital masterwork. According to Wired, the photograph, taken in February on a GigaPanBot-mounted Canon 550D, is comprised of 2,947 unique images that took a computer program more than four days to stitch together. If you're a fan of 18th century European literature, Franz Anton Maulbertsch's trompe l'oeil paintings, or just ridiculously detailed digital photography, you can peep the image in its entirety at the source link.
ZScape 3D holographic prints take maps to the next dimension, sans spectacles
As the video above shows, Zebra Imaging's so called ZScape prints pull off some pretty amazing 3D visual effects despite being based on old school hologram technology. These prints are made using a variety of 3D data sources -- think AutoCad and the like -- that are then rendered as thousands of holographic elements by recording laser light onto a single film-based material. The resulting images are easily viewed without glasses or spinning mirrors, and just require a run-of-the-mill halogen or LED light source to reveal 360-degree, full color representations -- akin to what a physical model might look like. Fancier versions can also be made using overlays and layering techniques to show more information. To date, over 8,000 ZScapes have already been developed for the US military, but surprisingly their prices range between $1,500 for a 12- x 18-inch version to $3,500 for the largest 2- x 3-foot size, making them relatively obtainable for those not on Defense Department tabs. If the video of Seattle pulling an Inception above didn't impress you enough, be sure to check another embedded video after the break.
EPFL's fly-inspired 3D camera takes omnipresence to the third dimension (video)
Just in case you were concerned that the 3D revolution hadn't yet taken over the scientific research field, EPFL is here to convince you that all is well. Researchers from a pair of EPFL laboratories have recently invented a fly-inspired dome camera that's not only loaded down with cameras to snag views from (nearly) all angles, but also equipped with an output algorithm that constructs a bona fide 3D image. The trickeration lies within the hardware platform, which calculates depth on each camera image and then reconstructs a 3D visual based on how far away things truly are. That's a far more sophisticated approach than the stereoscopic one used on existing 3D televisions, as the depth would (theoretically) change as your angle of view changed. There's an outstanding patent application on the approach, and if the world at large latches on, we could see this thing used for "video surveillance, movie making, and creating backgrounds for video games." Among other things, of course. A demonstrative vid awaits you just after the break.
Laser projector stuck to iPhone for 360 degree gaming
Are you ready to watch some videos of the most unnecessary iPhone modification in the device's recorded history? Check out the two clips posted past the jump to see YouTube user SoundKite's Frankenstein-esque tech mash-up, in which he adheres a Microvision ShowWX laser projector to an iPhone 3GS. While playing a game which uses the iPhone's compass (such as Sky Siege), the projector gives the illusion of 360-degree immersion. It looks awfully neat, though we're not sure how many practical applications it actually has. Though it would be pretty great to hijack a movie theater, and force its patrons to witness our sick Tilt to Live skills.
Sony's 360-degree 3D prototype displays blown minds (video)
Engadget Japanese is live at Tokyo's Digital Content EXP0 2009 where we've gone eyes-on with Sony's 360-degree 3D display prototype. Check the video (and sample image) after the break for a quick walk-around to see how Sony hopes the device can be used both commercially and in the home -- we're not talking HD here folks but it's an interesting concept nonetheless. %Gallery-76236%
Olympus creates 360-degree HD camera and projector
Sure, regular HD is nice -- you really get a gander at an anchorman's makeup, and the stars' wrinkles are shocking -- but does it go far enough? Olympus doesn't think so. The camera company -- long known to bring the goods on the picture-takin' end -- has just created the first 360-degree, 1080i camera and projection solution. Utilizing a proprietary system based around an "axisymmetric free-form-surface lens," the camera can shoot video at horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 360-and-50-degrees, respectively; the images can then be projected in the same range by a separate unit. Obviously, you won't see this in the consumer sector any time soon, but it does open some pretty interesting opportunities for installations and security alike.
Up close with the Ford Airstream's 360-degree TV
We had an opportunity this week to spend a few minutes mesmerized by the tube (literally) television mounted prominently to the floor of the passenger compartment in Ford's Airstream concept van. Granted, the big news here is that brick-like aerodynamics and hydrogen power make for strange bedfellows, but the bizarre display comes in a close second. Inhabitants of the van's quarters are theoretically able to use it to watch movies, but the thought of kiddies scrambling around a pole to catch the action on the other side of the picture is going to be a nightmare come true for parents of the distant future hauling down the highways and bi-ways in this thing. For what it's worth, the images looked extraordinarily bright (perhaps disturbingly so for the interior of a vehicle) and plenty crisp, but we'll ditch the movies -- we think could stare at that faux lava lamp for hours.
