Gigapixel cameras

[Lucas]

Now that I have your attention.

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/76243,...ry-camera.aspx

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a device that lets a standard digital camera take pictures with a resolution of 1-gigapixel (1,000-megapixels)..
The Gigapan is a robotic arm that takes multiple pictures of the same scene and blends them into a single image. The resulting picture can be expanded to show incredible detail.

"Our goal is to bring the world closer together by making it possible for anybody to take these panoramas and show them to people across the world," Randy Sargent, chief architect of the project at Carnegie Mellon, told The Times.

The robot takes a single picture and then takes 36 horizontal and 10 vertical overlapping shots.

Software then merges the images to produce the final image, such as one of the South Bank in London.

No date for the release off the device has yet been given but it is expected to retail for several hundred dollars.
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[[Admin] danroth]

Wow, talk about raising the bar!

How soon 'til the first church installs a GigaPixel projector?

[[Director] Joseph B]

You can do that in photoshop without the robot arm - a good tripod is helpful though.
So lets see I have an 8.2 megapixel cam, 10 shots - knock off the .2 for overlap and that would give 800 megapixels - I'll have to add three more shots to get that gigapixel.

[kbob]

Er-you're off by a factor of 10...but nice try. The expanded color depth photos from multiple pics allow somewhat the same hq, using specialized stiching software. More than a simple seemer, they also expand the tonal range as well.

[[Director] Joseph B]

Math was never my strong suit. But, yeah I can see that now -
I guess it's similar to the old tri-color photograph where you took three images with a red, blue, yellow filter and then printed them to one sheet of paper.