13 ms·

What a 600,000-megapixel-wide picture looks like

204 points by lukedeering 13y ago

lukedeering 13y ago
crazy
aram 13y ago
This is completely crazy; all these giga-pixel panoramas stun me with the level of details. Does anyone know any details about taking shots with such cameras? How much time do they actually need to capture photos with such quality?
- kalleboo 13y ago
  > Does anyone know any details about taking shots with such cameras? Read the link. It's a stitched panorama taken with a robot camera controller.
  - aram 13y ago
    Hahaha - thanks! I skipped the quotes automatically while skimming through the article; it's funny how we subconsciously "parse" every online page
- archivator 13y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5258896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5258896 is a comment from the creator of the BT London panorama.
  - aram 13y ago
    Thanks for the link
deletes 13y ago
A similar thing done with London. http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html Also funny:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.1,24.8,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.1,... Playing a table-top game:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=66.3,31.3,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=66.3,... Baseball:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=89.1,21.2,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=89.1,...
- smokel 13y ago
  The table-top game they are playing is Shogi.
- boyter 13y ago
  Heh, I was going to post the Thomas the tank engine shot. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.3,27.5,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.3,... There is another train on the track. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-127.6,14.9,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-127.... Here is a Ferrari (California I think) for anyone interested. The amount of details you can pick up is pretty amazing.
panic 13y ago
This is a very sad-looking man: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-82.7,23.8,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-82.7... Or maybe he's just sneezing?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deletes 13y ago
  Also sad: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=233.3,34.6,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=233.3...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mischanix 13y ago
A censored hotel bathroom: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154....
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  Censored with a <div> overlay ;)
  - MojoJolo 13y ago
    Good catch right there. Removed the overlay and saw a man washing his hands in a sink, and a woman sleeping.
cespare 13y ago
These controls are obnoxious.
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  It's the exact opposite on a touch device.
- archagon 13y ago
  Try arrow keys to pan, Shift to zoom in, and Ctrl to zoom out. Makes me feel like a super spy!
- maaku 13y ago
  You click left, it goes left. You click right, it goes right. What's obnoxious?
taspeotis 13y ago
Honestly I thought I was going to see some visualisation of a 1px high image vs. various other long things. E.g. " At a pixel density of 330ppi this image would be longer than 1000 Starship Enterprises* ". Alas, no. > What a 600,000 megapixels wide picture looks like (oddly-even.com) 23 points by lukedeering 1 hour ago | flag | 12 comments Megapixel: I do not think it means what you think it means. > A megapixel (MP or Mpx) is one million pixels [1] 600,000 * 1,000,000 = 600,000,000,000 > The largest photo ever taken of Tokyo is ... 600,000 pixels wide [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel#Megapixel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel#Megapixel [2] http://www.oddly-even.com/2013/07/31/the-largest-photo-ever-taken-of-tokyo-is-zoomable-and-it-is-glorious/ http://www.oddly-even.com/2013/07/31/the-largest-photo-ever-... *I wouldn't mind knowing how many Starship Enterprises a 600,000 megapixel wide picture would be if viewed at a pixel density of 330ppi.
- Retric 13y ago
  At, 330 ppi you talking 28,000 miles but I don't think all the enterprises where the same length. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Enterprise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Enterprise Edit: The next gen enterprise was 642.5 Meters so a little over 70,000 of them. PS: The NASA enterprise was a test platform and not space worthy.
- anonymouz 13y ago
  We have 600 * 10^9 pixels, at 330ppi resolution this would correspond to 1.828 * 10^9 inches, or 4.618 * 10^7m, i.e., about 46200km. Now, there are different Starship Enterprises of somewhat varying lengths, but let's take NCC 1701-D, because that's the first one I found data on. Wikipedia puts its length at 642.5m [1]. Thus, it ould be about 71880 Starship enterprises for the given length (not accounting for any other dimensions of course). More interesting, it's a bit more than the circumference of Earth (~40000km). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-D%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-D%2...
  - skrebbel 13y ago
    I'm really interested as to why you two consider a fictional space ship a good "underbelly feeling" measure of size. I like Star Trek, but I have absolutely no feeling for the size of the Enterprise. I'd believe it if you said it was 3km long, but also if you said that it was 400m long. Not meant as a harsh criticism though, I like the math and the geekiness :)
gearoidoc 13y ago
This is simply awesome.
aquarin 13y ago
Hum, a lonely head :) http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-0.5,27.1,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-0.5,...
gambiting 13y ago
Is this a mini cemetery? Squished between tall buildings? http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-296.5,19.1,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-296....
- Krame 13y ago
  yes it is
- knowaveragejoe 13y ago
  Indeed, they're quite common in Japanese cities.
v08i 13y ago
Half a car : http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=163.5,46.3,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=163.5...
lukashed 13y ago
I know this is evil and you should not do it, but just for the doability, here's a JavaScript that removes the censorings (like http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154....): javascript:$("*").filter(function(){if(this.currentStyle)return this.currentStyle["backgroundImage"]==="url(http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)";else http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)";else if(window.getComputedStyle)return document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(this,null).getPropertyValue("background-image")==="url(http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)"} http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)"}).remove()
- deletes 13y ago
  Maybe you should rather describe what it in the picture to satisfy reader curiosity.
  - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    On that particular link, a vague shirtless dude dressed in a towel at the kitchen sink.
- kirchhoff 13y ago
  $('*').filter(function(){if($(this).css('background-image').indexOf('black.png') != -1) return true}).remove();
  - lukashed 13y ago
    I used native functions (for the styles) since they performed much faster in other projects where there were many DOM elements.
- lukashed 13y ago
  Oh and btw, they even show us where the censored parts are: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/tokyo.xml http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/tokyo.xm... (four nodes of type hotspot)
julianpye 13y ago
I love the fact that he has taken the photos with the 400mm/5.6, which is a very affordable, lightweight, quite old lens that is supersharp.
mtgx 13y ago
Looks like a photosphere.
andreiursan 13y ago
I expected to see more people in the picture. I hardly can find one. Maybe they were edited out.
- nakedrobot2 13y ago
  Nope, didn't edit anyone out. There are actually lots of peoople in this one compared to other ones I've done....
alternize 13y ago
quite a few windows have a red triangle in them, f.e. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.... what do they mean?
- harisenbon 13y ago
  Emergency entrances for fire / rescue. You are not allowed to put anything in front of those windows, so that firefighers know they can break those windows to easily gain access to a building. They can then be used to help people escape, or get more firefighers into the building.
  - alternize 13y ago
    i see, makes sense. thanks!
visarga 13y ago
There is varying resolution depending on depth in each point.
dakrisht 13y ago
Pretty cool. Now imagine the tools the NSA has, live satellite feeds and hi-res cameras all over the US and the world with a bunch of Diet Coke drinking zombies clicking, zooming and panning all day long.
- shubb 13y ago
  Working with satellite data I can tell you that the maximum resolution data you are likely to get from a satellite is 0.25m resolution (i.e. a pixel is the size of a car wheel). And that's talking about likely military satellites - the public are lucky to get hold of 0.5m resolution. Also, clouds get in the way. A lot. For super high resolution imaginary like you are talking about, you need something like the ARGOS system [1]. This image was made by a slowly automatically rotating camera, but the ARGOS system seems to use a whole bunch of high resolution cameras, like a insects eye. The interesting thing about the ARGOS demo on NPR was the automatic object tracking. The system can track cars, and people, as they move around. You could go back through the data to follow a guy back to his house after he is identified as planting a bomb. Or more HN, posting something from an internet cafe. I really think that, as technology makes pervasive surveillance possible, we need laws to explicitly limit what the state or companies can do, at least domestically. It supprises me that people are so much more upset about the NSA gathering data, given that they willingly gave it to ad networks that want to use it to make bad decisions. The highest cost google ads are for loans, insurance, and other services where the provider makes more money if the user makes an inappropriate choice. Imagine if google put a googleX ARGOS on it's Loon baloons, and found some way to monetize it. We really need laws in place to stop anyone doing that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA <- skip to about 1:30
  - tomjen3 13y ago
    I assume that the government has better than normal classified satelite tech, so how do you know what kinds of resolutions are possible?
    - maaku 13y ago
Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago
Strange, it crashes my FF every time.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  Which Firefox version are you using? The website loads fine for me (on OS X) in Firefox 24.0a2 (Aurora), but hangs Firefox 25.0a1 (Nightly). I filed a bug here: https://bugzil.la/901306 https://bugzil.la/901306
xj 13y ago
Have a look at these two: fish-eye and reverse fish-eye views: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9,90.0,94 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9... http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9,-90.0,101 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9...
nkuttler 13y ago
Years ago I built a site with iipimage, http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/demo/ http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/demo/. I'm wondering if there are other tools around somebody here uses?
itissid 13y ago
Now this would make for a very long find waldo game.
- nakedrobot2 13y ago
  We did a number of licensing deals with pictures like this, involving a "where's waldo"-type treasure hunt :)
PBxdId7wFr 13y ago
Crashes firefox err'time.
emhart 13y ago
DON'T you! Forget about me! http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-.4,24,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-.4,2... DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T!
lukashed 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA had this in live and for every major city.
JeroenRansijn 13y ago
Absolutely mind boggling!
Chucero 13y ago
So enormous zoom technology, which is shown in all the movies, actually exist. We just have to wait a little for 100GB+ machines to become mainstream.
jpalomaki 13y ago
Sometimes in art galleries you see these very large photographs. I'm always annoyed that these don't have all the details. If you look from far enough they look nice, but once you go closer you see just the rasterization pattern. I would like to see posters made out of these gigapixel images and printed with such high quality that you could actually take a closer look and it would reveal something new.
- jdpage 13y ago
  > ... printed with such high quality that you could actually take a closer look and it would reveal something new. Last time I was at the NC Museum of Art, they had on display a wall-sized aerial composite photo of the grounds. Next to it was a box full of magnifying glasses and a plaque inviting you to do exactly that.
porterhaney 13y ago
Roof top smoking - http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/02/why-slow-and-steady-is-better-for-a-startup-than-growing-fast/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/02/why-slow-and-steady-is-bett...
- cocoflunchy 13y ago
  I don't think that's the link you wanted to share ;)
mikaelf 13y ago
Almost like the Lumia 1020 :)
nakedrobot2 13y ago
Hi, I'm the photographer who made this image. Thank you for all the attention :-) Let me try to answer some of your questions, in no particular order: 1) Here is the original page: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/ http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/ also here is a youtube screen capture showing a few highlights, if you are feeling lazy ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboCijiLwmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboCijiLwmI 2) it is not 600,000 megapixels. It is 600,000 pixels wide. If you are calculating it as a full sphere, then it's 180 gigapixels. But there is a black space on the bottom so we are calling it 150 gigapixels. 3) Yes we have censored a few things in the image which might be embarrassing to those people involved. Most of those things would not be embarrassing in other cultures (I think) such as a woman hanging laundry, but Japan is "different". Per the request of journalists at Asahi Shimbun who published a story about it there, we covered up a few bits in the photo. Oh, and the guy sleeping on the ground? Well that's embarrassing anywhere. Poor fellow probably did not expect to be famous on the internet as he lay down on the bench to sleep, fell off the bench, and kept on sleeping. (Side note: apparently in Tokyo it is fully acceptable to sleep it off on the street or in a park - it is a safe place! Well, if you're male...) 4) Yes you can use your geek powers to uncover the censored bits and there are already screenshots out there. Oh well. I did not actually see the whole image before publishing it. It is just so big :) 5) Yes, I used a Canon 7D (best pixel density) and a 400mm L f/5.6 lens, because that lens is great, sharp, and fit in my carryon - can't check camera gear on the plane now, can we. 6) I used a Clauss Rodeon gigapixel robot to control the camera. It is still a lot of work to set the speed and so on, don't think that this is a "set it and forget it" kind of thing. The robot is moving continuously, and the camera is focusing and shooting while moving. This is technologically amazing stuff, but it takes a lot of tweaking to get it to work. In this case I was not completely familiar with the equipment, and I made some mistakes. One section of the image was stitched together from two entire sets of images shot on two different days, in order to get a good alignment. 7) panning mode: we use the "original QTVR style" of navigation, which also used in first-person games. This lets you hold the mouse button down and "glide around". I find this vastly preferable to the click-drag-click-drag-click-drag google style. On touch screens, the movement follows your finger which is more intuitive generally. I've seen a five year old navigate these panoramas on an ipad with no problem. On the PC with a mouse there is not really "one right way". 8) Yes, I also made the "London 320 gigapixel" image, which is larger in terms of pixels, but this one is FAR more interesting in my opinion, and overall much better quality. If you're interested in seeing some of my other large images, check these: Tokyo Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (shot the same week as this one here) http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-gigapixel-roppongi-hills-mori-tower/ http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-gigapixel-roppongi-hills-mori... http://360cities.net/library http://360cities.net/library Strahov Library interior, 40 gigapixels. http://360gigapixels.com/petrin-prague-photo http://360gigapixels.com/petrin-prague-photo Prague from petrin tower, 34 gigapixels http://360cities.net/london http://360cities.net/london London 80 gigapixels If anyone has any other questions, I'm here, and happy to answer them. I'll try to check back often for the next hours. Cheers!
RogerL 13y ago
Wow, everyone is wearing a white shirt and black pants. The iconoclasts wear white pants.
kordless 13y ago
I'm amazed at how clean everything seems to be. Even the rooftops and gutters.
OldSchool 13y ago
First of all, this effort and its result are fanastic! Question: how close are sensor densities getting to present capabilities of glass in smartphones? For example, if a 10 gigapixel (100000x100000) sensor existed that would fit behind an iDevice's lens, how much digital zoom cropping would we really be able to enjoy before we hit details that are bigger than pixels but smaller than the tiny lens can pass clearly?
- nakedrobot2 13y ago
  Hi OldSchool, Thank you very much. In terms of pixel density: You may have noticed that the "megapixel wars" have pretty much stopped. And even the sensor that I've been using for nearly all of my "world record sized" is the 18-megapixel APS-c (1.6X "crop") Canon sensor (550D, 7D). The 7D is nearly 4 years old! Only in recent months has Canon released a camera with smaller pixels (the 20 megapixel 70D). Why? One major reason is that lenses can't resolve much more than this. Your 10 year old lens that was built for film might not yield any detail at 100% zoom. Another reason is that they are hitting limits with the wavelength of light. Correcting "chromatic aberration" on the sensor at this resolution is becoming a major issue. Each RGB sensor on the camera responds to a range of wavelengths, each one of which gets distorted differently. These all get mixed together and it's definitely not possible to disentangle them. So, to some degree, CA is impossible to fix completely. These are large sensors and large, expensive lenses we are talking about here. With smaller phone sensors and their tiny lenses, the problem is worse. Looking at all phone photos, there isn't really anything interesting at 100% zoom, I think you won't lose any detail at all if you make the photo 70% of its original size. To answer your question - it will take a great number of breakthroughs before there is anything like a 10 gigapixel sensor, with a lens that can resolve details for such a sensor.
  - OldSchool 13y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail :) Keep up the great art/science!
  - cclogg 13y ago
    That is one of the cool things about 'film' I should add... large format film has a crazy large megapixel equivalent. This guy's blog post has some interesting information about it: http://genotypewritings.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/digital-resolution-is-higher-than-film.html http://genotypewritings.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/digital-reso...
doctorstupid 13y ago
There must be someone spooky in that massive city who's looking directly at the camera.
ipodize 13y ago
This guy seems to be taking a pic of his friend in fromt of the gigapixel rig: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=151.1,19.0,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=151.1... Really awesome panorama, makes you feel like some kind of government agent...

204 points by lukedeering 13y ago

crazy

aram 13y ago

This is completely crazy; all these giga-pixel panoramas stun me with the level of details. Does anyone know any details about taking shots with such cameras? How much time do they actually need to capture photos with such quality?

kalleboo 13y ago
> Does anyone know any details about taking shots with such cameras? Read the link. It's a stitched panorama taken with a robot camera controller.
- aram 13y ago
  Hahaha - thanks! I skipped the quotes automatically while skimming through the article; it's funny how we subconsciously "parse" every online page
archivator 13y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5258896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5258896 is a comment from the creator of the BT London panorama.
- aram 13y ago
  Thanks for the link

deletes 13y ago

A similar thing done with London. http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html Also funny:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.1,24.8,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.1,... Playing a table-top game:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=66.3,31.3,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=66.3,... Baseball:http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=89.1,21.2,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=89.1,...

smokel 13y ago
The table-top game they are playing is Shogi.
boyter 13y ago
Heh, I was going to post the Thomas the tank engine shot. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.3,27.5,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=60.3,... There is another train on the track. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-127.6,14.9,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-127.... Here is a Ferrari (California I think) for anyone interested. The amount of details you can pick up is pretty amazing.

panic 13y ago

This is a very sad-looking man: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-82.7,23.8,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-82.7... Or maybe he's just sneezing?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deletes 13y ago
Also sad: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=233.3,34.6,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=233.3...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mischanix 13y ago

A censored hotel bathroom: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154....

huhtenberg 13y ago
Censored with a <div> overlay ;)
- MojoJolo 13y ago
  Good catch right there. Removed the overlay and saw a man washing his hands in a sink, and a woman sleeping.

cespare 13y ago

These controls are obnoxious.

huhtenberg 13y ago
It's the exact opposite on a touch device.
archagon 13y ago
Try arrow keys to pan, Shift to zoom in, and Ctrl to zoom out. Makes me feel like a super spy!
maaku 13y ago
You click left, it goes left. You click right, it goes right. What's obnoxious?

taspeotis 13y ago

Honestly I thought I was going to see some visualisation of a 1px high image vs. various other long things. E.g. " At a pixel density of 330ppi this image would be longer than 1000 Starship Enterprises* ". Alas, no. > What a 600,000 megapixels wide picture looks like (oddly-even.com) 23 points by lukedeering 1 hour ago | flag | 12 comments Megapixel: I do not think it means what you think it means. > A megapixel (MP or Mpx) is one million pixels [1] 600,000 * 1,000,000 = 600,000,000,000 > The largest photo ever taken of Tokyo is ... 600,000 pixels wide [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel#Megapixel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel#Megapixel [2] http://www.oddly-even.com/2013/07/31/the-largest-photo-ever-taken-of-tokyo-is-zoomable-and-it-is-glorious/ http://www.oddly-even.com/2013/07/31/the-largest-photo-ever-... *I wouldn't mind knowing how many Starship Enterprises a 600,000 megapixel wide picture would be if viewed at a pixel density of 330ppi.

Retric 13y ago
At, 330 ppi you talking 28,000 miles but I don't think all the enterprises where the same length. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Enterprise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Enterprise Edit: The next gen enterprise was 642.5 Meters so a little over 70,000 of them. PS: The NASA enterprise was a test platform and not space worthy.
anonymouz 13y ago
We have 600 * 10^9 pixels, at 330ppi resolution this would correspond to 1.828 * 10^9 inches, or 4.618 * 10^7m, i.e., about 46200km. Now, there are different Starship Enterprises of somewhat varying lengths, but let's take NCC 1701-D, because that's the first one I found data on. Wikipedia puts its length at 642.5m [1]. Thus, it ould be about 71880 Starship enterprises for the given length (not accounting for any other dimensions of course). More interesting, it's a bit more than the circumference of Earth (~40000km). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-D%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28NCC-1701-D%2...
- skrebbel 13y ago
  I'm really interested as to why you two consider a fictional space ship a good "underbelly feeling" measure of size. I like Star Trek, but I have absolutely no feeling for the size of the Enterprise. I'd believe it if you said it was 3km long, but also if you said that it was 400m long. Not meant as a harsh criticism though, I like the math and the geekiness :)

gearoidoc 13y ago

This is simply awesome.

aquarin 13y ago

Hum, a lonely head :) http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-0.5,27.1,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-0.5,...

gambiting 13y ago

Is this a mini cemetery? Squished between tall buildings? http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-296.5,19.1,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-296....

Krame 13y ago
yes it is
knowaveragejoe 13y ago
Indeed, they're quite common in Japanese cities.

v08i 13y ago

Half a car : http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=163.5,46.3,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=163.5...

lukashed 13y ago

I know this is evil and you should not do it, but just for the doability, here's a JavaScript that removes the censorings (like http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154....): javascript:$("*").filter(function(){if(this.currentStyle)return this.currentStyle["backgroundImage"]==="url(http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)";else http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)";else if(window.getComputedStyle)return document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(this,null).getPropertyValue("background-image")==="url(http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)"} http://360gigapixels.com/black.png)"}).remove()

deletes 13y ago
Maybe you should rather describe what it in the picture to satisfy reader curiosity.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  On that particular link, a vague shirtless dude dressed in a towel at the kitchen sink.
kirchhoff 13y ago
$('*').filter(function(){if($(this).css('background-image').indexOf('black.png') != -1) return true}).remove();
- lukashed 13y ago
  I used native functions (for the styles) since they performed much faster in other projects where there were many DOM elements.
lukashed 13y ago
Oh and btw, they even show us where the censored parts are: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/tokyo.xml http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/tokyo.xm... (four nodes of type hotspot)

julianpye 13y ago

I love the fact that he has taken the photos with the 400mm/5.6, which is a very affordable, lightweight, quite old lens that is supersharp.

mtgx 13y ago

Looks like a photosphere.

andreiursan 13y ago

I expected to see more people in the picture. I hardly can find one. Maybe they were edited out.

nakedrobot2 13y ago
Nope, didn't edit anyone out. There are actually lots of peoople in this one compared to other ones I've done....

alternize 13y ago

quite a few windows have a red triangle in them, f.e. http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.2,18.4,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-154.... what do they mean?

harisenbon 13y ago
Emergency entrances for fire / rescue. You are not allowed to put anything in front of those windows, so that firefighers know they can break those windows to easily gain access to a building. They can then be used to help people escape, or get more firefighers into the building.
- alternize 13y ago
  i see, makes sense. thanks!

visarga 13y ago

There is varying resolution depending on depth in each point.

dakrisht 13y ago

Pretty cool. Now imagine the tools the NSA has, live satellite feeds and hi-res cameras all over the US and the world with a bunch of Diet Coke drinking zombies clicking, zooming and panning all day long.

shubb 13y ago
Working with satellite data I can tell you that the maximum resolution data you are likely to get from a satellite is 0.25m resolution (i.e. a pixel is the size of a car wheel). And that's talking about likely military satellites - the public are lucky to get hold of 0.5m resolution. Also, clouds get in the way. A lot. For super high resolution imaginary like you are talking about, you need something like the ARGOS system [1]. This image was made by a slowly automatically rotating camera, but the ARGOS system seems to use a whole bunch of high resolution cameras, like a insects eye. The interesting thing about the ARGOS demo on NPR was the automatic object tracking. The system can track cars, and people, as they move around. You could go back through the data to follow a guy back to his house after he is identified as planting a bomb. Or more HN, posting something from an internet cafe. I really think that, as technology makes pervasive surveillance possible, we need laws to explicitly limit what the state or companies can do, at least domestically. It supprises me that people are so much more upset about the NSA gathering data, given that they willingly gave it to ad networks that want to use it to make bad decisions. The highest cost google ads are for loans, insurance, and other services where the provider makes more money if the user makes an inappropriate choice. Imagine if google put a googleX ARGOS on it's Loon baloons, and found some way to monetize it. We really need laws in place to stop anyone doing that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA <- skip to about 1:30
- tomjen3 13y ago
  I assume that the government has better than normal classified satelite tech, so how do you know what kinds of resolutions are possible?
  - maaku 13y ago

Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago

Strange, it crashes my FF every time.

cpeterso 13y ago
Which Firefox version are you using? The website loads fine for me (on OS X) in Firefox 24.0a2 (Aurora), but hangs Firefox 25.0a1 (Nightly). I filed a bug here: https://bugzil.la/901306 https://bugzil.la/901306

xj 13y ago

Have a look at these two: fish-eye and reverse fish-eye views: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9,90.0,94 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9... http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9,-90.0,101 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=108.9...

nkuttler 13y ago

Years ago I built a site with iipimage, http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/demo/ http://iipimage.sourceforge.net/demo/. I'm wondering if there are other tools around somebody here uses?

itissid 13y ago

Now this would make for a very long find waldo game.

nakedrobot2 13y ago
We did a number of licensing deals with pictures like this, involving a "where's waldo"-type treasure hunt :)

PBxdId7wFr 13y ago

Crashes firefox err'time.

emhart 13y ago

DON'T you! Forget about me! http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-.4,24,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=-.4,2... DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T!

lukashed 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA had this in live and for every major city.

JeroenRansijn 13y ago

Absolutely mind boggling!

Chucero 13y ago

So enormous zoom technology, which is shown in all the movies, actually exist. We just have to wait a little for 100GB+ machines to become mainstream.

jpalomaki 13y ago

Sometimes in art galleries you see these very large photographs. I'm always annoyed that these don't have all the details. If you look from far enough they look nice, but once you go closer you see just the rasterization pattern. I would like to see posters made out of these gigapixel images and printed with such high quality that you could actually take a closer look and it would reveal something new.

jdpage 13y ago
> ... printed with such high quality that you could actually take a closer look and it would reveal something new. Last time I was at the NC Museum of Art, they had on display a wall-sized aerial composite photo of the grounds. Next to it was a box full of magnifying glasses and a plaque inviting you to do exactly that.

porterhaney 13y ago

Roof top smoking - http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/02/why-slow-and-steady-is-better-for-a-startup-than-growing-fast/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/02/why-slow-and-steady-is-bett...

cocoflunchy 13y ago
I don't think that's the link you wanted to share ;)

mikaelf 13y ago

Almost like the Lumia 1020 :)

nakedrobot2 13y ago

Hi, I'm the photographer who made this image. Thank you for all the attention :-) Let me try to answer some of your questions, in no particular order: 1) Here is the original page: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/ http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/ also here is a youtube screen capture showing a few highlights, if you are feeling lazy ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboCijiLwmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboCijiLwmI 2) it is not 600,000 megapixels. It is 600,000 pixels wide. If you are calculating it as a full sphere, then it's 180 gigapixels. But there is a black space on the bottom so we are calling it 150 gigapixels. 3) Yes we have censored a few things in the image which might be embarrassing to those people involved. Most of those things would not be embarrassing in other cultures (I think) such as a woman hanging laundry, but Japan is "different". Per the request of journalists at Asahi Shimbun who published a story about it there, we covered up a few bits in the photo. Oh, and the guy sleeping on the ground? Well that's embarrassing anywhere. Poor fellow probably did not expect to be famous on the internet as he lay down on the bench to sleep, fell off the bench, and kept on sleeping. (Side note: apparently in Tokyo it is fully acceptable to sleep it off on the street or in a park - it is a safe place! Well, if you're male...) 4) Yes you can use your geek powers to uncover the censored bits and there are already screenshots out there. Oh well. I did not actually see the whole image before publishing it. It is just so big :) 5) Yes, I used a Canon 7D (best pixel density) and a 400mm L f/5.6 lens, because that lens is great, sharp, and fit in my carryon - can't check camera gear on the plane now, can we. 6) I used a Clauss Rodeon gigapixel robot to control the camera. It is still a lot of work to set the speed and so on, don't think that this is a "set it and forget it" kind of thing. The robot is moving continuously, and the camera is focusing and shooting while moving. This is technologically amazing stuff, but it takes a lot of tweaking to get it to work. In this case I was not completely familiar with the equipment, and I made some mistakes. One section of the image was stitched together from two entire sets of images shot on two different days, in order to get a good alignment. 7) panning mode: we use the "original QTVR style" of navigation, which also used in first-person games. This lets you hold the mouse button down and "glide around". I find this vastly preferable to the click-drag-click-drag-click-drag google style. On touch screens, the movement follows your finger which is more intuitive generally. I've seen a five year old navigate these panoramas on an ipad with no problem. On the PC with a mouse there is not really "one right way". 8) Yes, I also made the "London 320 gigapixel" image, which is larger in terms of pixels, but this one is FAR more interesting in my opinion, and overall much better quality. If you're interested in seeing some of my other large images, check these: Tokyo Roppongi Hills Mori Tower (shot the same week as this one here) http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-gigapixel-roppongi-hills-mori-tower/ http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-gigapixel-roppongi-hills-mori... http://360cities.net/library http://360cities.net/library Strahov Library interior, 40 gigapixels. http://360gigapixels.com/petrin-prague-photo http://360gigapixels.com/petrin-prague-photo Prague from petrin tower, 34 gigapixels http://360cities.net/london http://360cities.net/london London 80 gigapixels If anyone has any other questions, I'm here, and happy to answer them. I'll try to check back often for the next hours. Cheers!

RogerL 13y ago

Wow, everyone is wearing a white shirt and black pants. The iconoclasts wear white pants.

kordless 13y ago

I'm amazed at how clean everything seems to be. Even the rooftops and gutters.

OldSchool 13y ago

First of all, this effort and its result are fanastic! Question: how close are sensor densities getting to present capabilities of glass in smartphones? For example, if a 10 gigapixel (100000x100000) sensor existed that would fit behind an iDevice's lens, how much digital zoom cropping would we really be able to enjoy before we hit details that are bigger than pixels but smaller than the tiny lens can pass clearly?

nakedrobot2 13y ago
Hi OldSchool, Thank you very much. In terms of pixel density: You may have noticed that the "megapixel wars" have pretty much stopped. And even the sensor that I've been using for nearly all of my "world record sized" is the 18-megapixel APS-c (1.6X "crop") Canon sensor (550D, 7D). The 7D is nearly 4 years old! Only in recent months has Canon released a camera with smaller pixels (the 20 megapixel 70D). Why? One major reason is that lenses can't resolve much more than this. Your 10 year old lens that was built for film might not yield any detail at 100% zoom. Another reason is that they are hitting limits with the wavelength of light. Correcting "chromatic aberration" on the sensor at this resolution is becoming a major issue. Each RGB sensor on the camera responds to a range of wavelengths, each one of which gets distorted differently. These all get mixed together and it's definitely not possible to disentangle them. So, to some degree, CA is impossible to fix completely. These are large sensors and large, expensive lenses we are talking about here. With smaller phone sensors and their tiny lenses, the problem is worse. Looking at all phone photos, there isn't really anything interesting at 100% zoom, I think you won't lose any detail at all if you make the photo 70% of its original size. To answer your question - it will take a great number of breakthroughs before there is anything like a 10 gigapixel sensor, with a lens that can resolve details for such a sensor.
- OldSchool 13y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail :) Keep up the great art/science!
- cclogg 13y ago
  That is one of the cool things about 'film' I should add... large format film has a crazy large megapixel equivalent. This guy's blog post has some interesting information about it: http://genotypewritings.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/digital-resolution-is-higher-than-film.html http://genotypewritings.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/digital-reso...

doctorstupid 13y ago

There must be someone spooky in that massive city who's looking directly at the camera.

ipodize 13y ago

This guy seems to be taking a pic of his friend in fromt of the gigapixel rig: http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=151.1,19.0,1 http://360gigapixels.com/tokyo-tower-panorama-photo/?v=151.1... Really awesome panorama, makes you feel like some kind of government agent...