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Two Billion Pixel Photo of Mount Everest (can you find the climbers?)
- alimoeeny 14y agoWhat is the point? are you load testing S3 or something?
- DavidAdams 14y agoThe point is that the creation of that high-resolution image of Everest is a noteworthy technological achievement, and most people have never seen such a high quality photograph of our planet's highest mountain before.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- albinoloverats 14y agoYes, I did - but by pure luck :p
- arethuza 14y agoIf you start at Base Camp and follow the route up you can see quite a few - I've spotted around 30. Difficult to believe how big Base Camp is!
- rcamera 14y agoNice photograph and interface. How was the photograph actually composed? Found them... Spoiler: http://imgur.com/zpyOg http://imgur.com/zpyOg
- pmoehring 14y agoWhen you follow http://www.alanarnette.com/downloads/everestsouthroutemap.jpg http://www.alanarnette.com/downloads/everestsouthroutemap.jp... this picture you can see the route. I had a hard time seeing any of the climbers until I knew where to look. Point C3 is the last place you can actually see humans (& tents), C4 is already more of a guess.
- crikli 14y agoForbidden link. :(
- neuspadrin 14y agoGo to the main website: http://www.alanarnette.com/ http://www.alanarnette.com/ then copy url for image in: http://www.alanarnette.com/downloads/everestsouthroutemap.jpg http://www.alanarnette.com/downloads/everestsouthroutemap.jp... Simple hot linking restrictions.
- crikli 14y agoWell now I feel dumb(er). :)
- robbyking 14y agoJust refresh the page so the referrer is the same domain.
- crikli 14y agoOthers will be able to fill in more detail as I'm just going off memory here, but I think this is taken from the Nepalese side. The ice field just above Base Camp (which, wow, look at all those tents) is the Khumbu Icefall, which climbers must scale to en route to the South Col.
- ghaff 14y agoI think it was taken from the Kala Patthar summit or somewhere close to there. (So, yes, the Nepalese side.)
- krschultz 14y agoI'm amazed not by the mountain - but by the size of the camp in the valley. I knew a lot of people climbed Mt Everest, but that't practically a small city.
- matthodan 14y agoHere is a Gizmodo article on the photo for those wanting the back story: http://gizmodo.com/5969706/a-stunning-two-billion-pixel-photo-is-the-safest-way-to-explore-mount-everest http://gizmodo.com/5969706/a-stunning-two-billion-pixel-phot...
- arscan 14y agoI was able to follow the line of people / tents about halfway up using this as a guide: http://www.abc-of-mountaineering.com/images/content-images/article-327.gif http://www.abc-of-mountaineering.com/images/content-images/a... Then lost them. Amazing photo!
- aakarpost 14y agoCould not find the climbers. But this 2B pixel photo is just awesome. :)
- jasonkester 14y agoLooks like there's a few on the icefall. Follow the line of garbage, then up and across the fall. The only hard part is dealing with the inverted mouse movement on the interface. Why would they do that???
- leetrout 14y agoI came to post that- about the mouse movement. It's absolutely driving me nuts. Makes no sense.
- jordan0day 14y agoI think it's just an artifact of pre-tablet era interaction design (not that this software was actually written all that long ago). Nowadays it seems perfectly reasonable to imagine clicking and dragging the image around in order to pan -- I'm not confident that particular interaction would have even occurred to a lot of people a few years ago, though.
- kstenerud 14y agoDrag to pan has been around for decades now. The inverted acceleration-style interface was designed to accomodate a joystick.
- pserwylo 14y agoI would say: Pre Google Maps era. I find it perfectly intuitive to click and drag most online maps around, but it might have been weird the first time I encountered it. For example, I still like to scroll down to go down in a web page, and get confused (and frustrated?) when I use the new mac mice which use the touch-screen/map type scrolling. However I'm quite sure that if I was a mac person, I'd get used to it fairly quickly.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sp332 14y agoIt might help if you think of it as directing the camera instead of moving the image. When you click and drag left, you're telling the camera to look to the left.
- dutchbrit 14y agoCould you remove the XML reference to mobile/tablet images in krpano?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jordan0day 14y agoWow, I was thinking to myself: "Jeez, look at all that trash those climbers have left on the mountain!" Then I zoomed in some more, and realized the "trash" was actually tents.
- monsterix 14y agoJesus, it's imposing. How small the tents are in comparison to even the ripples of snow at the base of the mountain!
- krenoten 14y agoActually, a TON of trash gets left there. Oxygen tanks especially. Also- if you die there, expect to stay put.
- reaperhulk 14y agoOxygen bottles are not nearly the problem they used to be due to programs in the late 90s and on where companies paid Sherpas (and other climbers) for bringing empties back off the mountain. There's also been a concerted effort to pick up trash starting ~1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day_20_International_Peace_Climb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day_20_International_Peac...)
- jordan0day 14y agoYeah, that's why I think my initial response was what it was. I knew that Everest gets trashed by the climbers (I don't actually know it, it's just one of those memes I've picked up on over time), so my initial impression when seeing the small brightly-colored objects in the picture was, of course, that is all that trash I've heard that gets left on the mountain.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- skandl 14y agoWow this is captivating, but panning with the mouse on a desktop is so frustrating, the image movement is opposite what I expect! (browsing on a desktop, Windows/Chrome)
- skandl 14y agoI guess it's the hours spent panning around in Google Maps that's working against me
- darkstalker 14y agoI hate this panning mode in the "opposite direction" and with velocity. I prefer to drag the image.
- mpweiher 14y agoYeah, panning with the mouse was awful, but with the keyboard it became a real joy, and I started finding the climbers.
- com2kid 14y agoI am confused, how so? It is the same as any FPS.
- kstenerud 14y agoVery cool, but the inverted acceleration panning is incredibly difficult and frustrating to use. I gave up after a few attempts to zoom and pan.
- jdludlow 14y agoIf you think "I'm moving the camera on this tripod" it suddenly becomes very natural. It worked for me anyway.
- johnnymonster 14y agoI have apple to thank for not making this annoying. I didn't get what all of you were talking about because the movement was normal/intuitive to me...
- ejfox 14y agoI wish that this was retina-ready because it sounds like two billion pixels is what this machine was made for.
- slajax 14y agoJust spent like 25 minutes looking it over with my colleague at work. There is so much going on here, it's awesome. I was also very blown away by how big the camp at the bottom of the valley was. Most of those must be semi-permanent structures that the guides maintain. I couldn't imagine that is transient traffic. I think I remember seeing something on departures (or something) about a big festival that happens in this valley. Maybe that has some context here as well, but I have no idea. Great link!
- recroad 14y agoIn case anyone`s wondering, this is where the riders are: http://i.imgur.com/dTUJA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/dTUJA.jpg
- mpweiher 14y agoThe lowest I could find (outside of basecamp) were here: http://i.imgur.com/U6GaL.jpg http://i.imgur.com/U6GaL.jpg Did anyone find climbers lower in the icefall?
- pjy04 14y agounbelievable...
- arscan 14y agoSo this is a little off-topic, but I read an article the other week that i haven't been able to shake about the number of people that have died on Everest and whose bodies have never been retrieved (warning, morbid and slightly graphic): http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bodies-on-mount-everest/ http://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/06/29/over-200-dead-bo... Just a reminder that those little dots are people who are taking a very real risk by attempting to reach the summit. I'm not sure if I'm envious of their drive, or if I think they are absolutely crazy.
- thesis 14y agoThere are far deadlier mountains out there than Everest. I think the current death rate is around 5%. Annapurna has killed about 35% of the climbers that attempted. It has gotten to the point where there are basically proven (about as much as you can for something so dangerous) methods of getting to the top. "Into Thin Air" is a great book on the journey (the very bad , and the good) to the top.
- crikli 14y agoI always thought about doing Everest if I could ever afford it. You know, one those idle "I'll do that someday thoughts" we all have. Once I hit the "I could afford this" point I started researching Everest...read Into Thin Air, Dark Summit, No Shortcuts to the Top, etc., watched every documentary I could get my hands on, even talked with one of the climbers featured on the Discovery series that featured Russel Brice's company. I've concluded that I'm not interested. I'm not interested in standing in line at the Second Step for hours while my body consumes itself and I burn through the scant amount of oxygen I have. I'm not interested in the very real risk that I may arrive back at Camp IV after a summit attempt to find my O2 and supplies stolen. I'm not interested in seeing the corpses, oxygen bottles, tents, and other detritus cluttering up the mountain. I'm not condemning those who chose to go or those who help them get there, but I'm out: human behavior has made the idea of summiting Everest unappealing.
- mark_h 14y ago
- EvanAnderson 14y agoThis photo really makes me appreciate the fractal geometry and self-similarity of natural formations. When looking at part of the image w/o any objects of known size for reference I lost all sense of proportion. Tiny "pebbles" were actually boulders, etc.
- Guillaume86 14y agoSame here, couldn't make sense of the proportions in the foreground, I though the valley was a 1m wide track at first
- jcmoscon 14y agoSame thing here! Fractals geometry is very interesting!
- weej 14y agoAmazing. I was fortunate to travel out to Alaska a couple of years ago and do some glacier climbing and hiking. It was amazing, but pales in comparison to the vast, immense power of this photo. Awesome.
- alexcabrera 14y agoThis would be awesome for Where's Waldo
- mikegirouard 14y agoThis is simply breathtaking. I'm sure the app behind this is assembling tiles together, but does there exist a full-resolution image of this in a single piece? I've tried to use my network inspector to figure out how to access the individual tiles, but no luck.
- bryanjclark 14y agoHuge mountain is Huge.
- frozenport 14y agoI really like the user experience and I am impressed by how fluid it runs on my computer. Much more fluid than Google maps. You should add a collaborative tagging interface, where users can choose to point out certain parts.
- shanellem 14y agoAmazing. It's things like this that put the world in perspective. How much we can achieve, the beauty of the world, etc.
- adrianbg 14y agoDidn't find any climbers but found lots of bits of dust on my screen.
- danhodgins 14y agoI only found the climbers after looking at this Everest route map: http://www.greatoutdoors.com/everest-2010/routes-maps http://www.greatoutdoors.com/everest-2010/routes-maps Look for camp 3. You have to zoom all the way in, and look at where the rough snow meets the smooth snow. You'll see some super tiny yellow dots, those are the tents. The tiny black specks just to the left are climbers. The sense of scale in the Himalayas is almost unfathomable.....
- flavien_bessede 14y agoNeed banana for scale.
- meerita 14y agoNice, it works neat on my retina display, :D
- gautamc 14y agoI saw the /gigapans/ in the URL and googled for it, thinking it must be a super intelligent panoramic "image sticher"+"image viewer" written in flash - but found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapan
- meerita 14y agoFrom this point it doesn't look so high. But when you start zooming, some parts seems like they're few miles and other, endless.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- songzme 14y agoHow do you take a billion pixel photos? All the cameras I've ever heard of is mega pixels... I've never heard of a billa pixel camera before.
- dudurocha 14y agoYou merge hundreds thousands mega pixel pictures!
- JohnFromBuffalo 14y agoCan you find the dead climber? That's the real question. I found one already.
- lutze 14y agoShouldn't be that hard, there are loads of the poor buggers. Just look around the climbing routes, they don't (can't) move most of the bodies AFAIK. Bit morbid though.
- JohnFromBuffalo 14y agoI read Into Thin Air, about the 1996 account by a reporter who was with the crew that lost 4 members. After poking around I saw someone saying the Sherpas will kick bodies in the crevasses and they wash out in the Spring. Sad, but with a rate of 1:4 before 1996, then 1:7 after on death ratios its gotten much better. However, it takes money/balls/stupidity to climb that thing.
- grimey27 14y agoBeautiful and terrifying. I could examine this for hours.
- Yaggo 14y agoWould be nice if they offered a web version too.
- johnnymonster 14y agoDoes anyone know how this picture was taken or who took the picture?
- csl 14y agoWhat kind of equipment was used to take this photo? It's pretty amazing!
- isnotchicago 14y agoFor more photos of the mountain and others, the photographers' site: http://www.glacierworks.org/the-glaciers/ http://www.glacierworks.org/the-glaciers/
- hxseven 14y agoThere are also some interesting "behind the scenes" photos on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/glacierworks/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/glacierworks/
- alexpopescu 14y agoIs this a climber or just a shadow? http://cl.ly/image/3m3K3x0n3k1U http://cl.ly/image/3m3K3x0n3k1U
- justindocanto 14y agoAt first look the mountain looked so small. Then i found some humans, the size of ants, and it was all put into perspective. Wow.
- TommyDANGerous 14y agoThis is the nicest picture I have seen in a while.
- brunokenj 14y agoSome guys? http://postimage.org/image/xwf2yb46t/ http://postimage.org/image/xwf2yb46t/ from another view of tour.
- brunokenj 14y agohttp://postimage.org/image/b584kmjod/ http://postimage.org/image/b584kmjod/
- 001sky 14y agoThis is the work of David Bresears http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Breashears http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Breashears The result of a project by David Breashears, who has already climbed the highest mountain in the world five times. He used old images of Everest and its glaciers and combined them with new ones. The photo is part of a broader project called GlacierWorks by the mountaineer Breashears, who made the much-acclaimed IMAX documentary “Everest.”
- elliottcarlson 14y agoThe founder of the company I work for (Lot18) actually climbed Everest - so after sending him the link to this, he dropped by and explained everything we were looking at - and outlining the paths and various dangers associated with the climb. It's quite an amazing story - and I found some slides related to his climb from 2009: http://www.slideshare.net/snooth/everest-2003-north-face-rescue http://www.slideshare.net/snooth/everest-2003-north-face-res...
- ohwp 14y agoIs this done with Autopano (http://www.kolor.com/ http://www.kolor.com/ http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/brown/autostitch/autostitch.html http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/brown/autostitch/autostitch.html)?
- manaslutech 14y agoGreat picture! We are also a company based in Nepal where this picture is taken from. Our company name is after another peak - Manaslu, which is a 8th highest peak in the world. We do Ruby on Rails web development. http://www.manaslutech.com http://www.manaslutech.com
- jrockway 14y agoAny headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. And no, I couldn't find the climbers.
- hxseven 14y agoThe GlacierWorks team (in cooperation with URC Ventures) also made a photo-realistic 3D model of the Himalayas using images that were captured using a helicopter. The preview video looks promising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEs3euTgj8s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEs3euTgj8s Background info: http://urcventures.com/whats-new/ http://urcventures.com/whats-new/
- CalvinCopyright 14y agoIf you don't look at the pointers, this is the most difficult Where's Waldo ever.
- widk 14y agoThere might be a couple of climbers on the left ridge of Everest, which I just read is the easier climb. If you look near the base of the ridge on the left, there is a strip of snow that starts going up the mountain. Follow the ridge up you will come across a little cloud puff rising up on the other side. Just beyond that point, you will see two super-tiny parallel specks that sort of look like they are leaning into the mountain.
- tesko8482 14y agoThis is absolutely gorgeous.
- jcmoscon 14y agoWhen I saw the picture and it was totally zoom out , I thought it was a small road between some small hills. That's totally a fractal!
- kamikaze203 14y agoWhat is it ? http://i50.tinypic.com/90nds3.png http://i50.tinypic.com/90nds3.png