Largest Digital Photograph in the World

thrill12 writes "Dutch research institute TNO has unveiled what it believes is the largest digital photograph in the world. The image contains 2.5 gigapixels or 7.5 gigabyte worth of data. It is composed of 600 single images shot by a computer-controlled pan-tilt unit in 7 second intervals. Afterwards, all photos where stiched together (compare: panorama tools) using the capacity of 5 high-end pc's in about 24 hours time."

Mirror

[RaymondInFinland]

(not a very fast, but currently still working) mirror here: http://spider007.net/ext/tweakers.net/niews_35069. html

For all non-photo geeks out there

[xThinkx]

I'd like to take this time to point out the lunacy of the 'megapixel' ratings for cameras

A number determined from the multiplication of length and width in pixels of an image has about as much to do with the quality of a picture as the size of your passenger cabin has to do with the speed of your car. Yes, you can print larger pictures without seeing pixels if you have a higher megapixel count, but chances are it's not the resolution of your photos that you'll notice.

A major factor in the quality of any image is the quality of the optics used to take it. That means the lens, the glass used to focus and point the image onto the sensor. Quality glass, such as low dispersion glass (I'm preferential to Canon's "L" glass) will create images with sharp edges, crisp focus, and good bokeh. Use cheap glass and you'll get the opposite. Effects like soft focus, purple halos, light leaking, and distortion will all still be present if you use poor optics, no matter what the MP rating. I wonder how many people have upgraded from a 3 mp to a 4, 6, or 8 mp camera and still found lackluster results.

My point, a camera has many more features that determine quality than just the megapixel rating, when you choose one, consider these as well and you'll be happier. And here's a plug, dpreview.com does some awesome camera reviews (I'm in no way affiliated with them).

Re:file size limitation?!?

[farnz]

You just totally missed the boat. FAT32 has a filesize limitation of 2GB, NTFS doesn't. Older Linux kernels limit you to 2GB/file, newer ones don't.

On NTFS, ReiserFS and Ext3 (Windows 2k, and Linux 2.6), I've been able to store complete DVD-9 images (8GB or so).

Um, no.

[mapmaker]

It would appear these people have never heard of aerial photography. Here at my job (local DC government) we work with a digital aerial orthophotograph of Washington DC that is over 20 gigapixels in size.

It's true that the file size of our imagery is smaller than theirs, as we use Mr. Sid format for better compression, but our pixel count leaves them in the dust.

I don't believe this image is in any way extraordinary or special - pretty much every local government across the country maintains digital imagery of their jurisdiction that is comparible in resolution.

Re:file size limitation?!?

[MyHair]

Unless I just totally missed the boat, Windows and Linux have a file size limitation of around 2 gigabytes.

Wha?

You missed the boat. Various FAT filesystems may be limited to 2GB, but Linux and modern Windows have no such built in limits. Check on the individual filesystems. I know NTFS can go over 4GB; I think it's capable up to a few TB. ext2 may have some lesser limits but is well over 4GB. XFS, JFS and ReiserFS are worth a look.

Re:file size limitation?!?

[mapmaker]

It's not a file size limitation that's causing the choke, it's the memory size limitation. 32-bit OSes can only handle 4 GB of RAM, so when you try to open an image that approaches that limit - blammo.

Re:For all non-photo geeks out there

[Twanfox]

It isn't lunacy.

With optical cameras, the resolution and clarity of the image is more influenced by the optics (lens, etc) than the film, because the film is capable of storing an obscene resolution. A cheap little disposable camera is capable of having that same picture printed at 3"x4" or 8"x10", and the only thing that influences it is the optics that were used as to how clear that image is.

For digital cameras, the optics are not nearly as critical in defining the quality of image as the CCD is (photoreceptors). If the best you can do is 2.0 megapixels for top image size of the camera, the best you'll be able to print out with clarity is probably like 3"x4". However, if you take a camera capable of doing 5.2 megapixels, you can turn right around and print out that image at 8"x10" without loss in quality.

While optics do play a role in how clear the image is, if the photoreceptors are incapable of recording the resolution you're seeking for high quality, optics cease being the defining characteristic.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, his picture is interesting to look at.

Re:Um, no.

[mapmaker]

Yes, aerial orthophotography is pretty much always taken with digital cameras nowadays. It's a 100% digital process.

But now that I've RTFA, I see that they are claiming to have the largest digital panoramic photo in the world. The poster overstated their claim.

Adding that qualifier in makes their claim more plausible, but also less noteworthy.

Canon-L fanboys who know nothing of optics

[SuperBanana]

Quality glass, such as low dispersion glass (I'm preferential to Canon's "L" glass) will create images with sharp edges, crisp focus, and good bokeh. Use cheap glass and you'll get the opposite.

Bokeh comes from the number of aperture leaves and their shape(there are some non-straight-edged aperture leaves). It has -absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the glass-.

Furthermore, Canon's $60 50mm/1.8 is plasticky, cheap, blah blah- but it's just as sharp as the faster, metal (heavier) L-series lens, and it doesn't suffer from the mild barrel distortion the L-series lens does. It has fewer aperture blades, so bokeh is not as great- which is pretty much the only reason pros buy the L version. Consumers buy it because they want a red ring around their lens and they don't want to be caught dead with a plastic lens.

You can stare at lens charts until the cows come home and argue about image quality. The L-lenses are slightly better in most image quality categories since they do generally use the very best of Canon's technology, but their chief advantage is that they are built with stronger but heavier materials, aimed at professional users who don't mind that the body is thick metal. Phil Greenspun claims he's dropped his 70-210/2.8 IS on the floor and it worked fine. I'm not about to try with mine, but I can tell you that the thing is built like a goddamn tank, and designed to be modular for easy servicing. Even the tripod mount screw is replaceable...

Re:For all non-photo geeks out there

[WNight]

They do this. Go to www.dpreview.com and read a review. They take pictures of test charts and show you pictures of how the camera handles very fine lines getting smaller and smaller. This is where you get color fringing, moire, bluriness, and artifacts as the camera tries to get some data out of the mess.

Re:file size limitation?!?

[qodfathr]

Actually, it's a limitation of the image program the person is using. Win2K and it's offspring (XP) can make use of lots of address space (read: >4GB). But, it's neither easy nor automatic. The OS will 'automatically' let each process have up to 4GB of address space (well, 2GB by default and 3GB with the right switches so the OS can have the other 1GB for its uses) (and you cannot allocate one contiguous 3GB block due to some, um, old issues), but using AWE (Address Windowing Extensions), you can basically augment your program with a paging mechanism which will give you 64-bit addressing. (But you need to page in and out of thar 64-bit space into your process' 32-bit space.) Oh, and if you want to access more RAM than 4GB from a single process, you'd need to use PAE (if your system supports it).

Read Raymond Chen's August 2004 blog entries (http://weblogs.asp.net/oldnewthing/archive/2004/0 8.aspx) if you really care about any of this.

Mine's bigger

[MrBlic]

Here's a link to a montage of a Dolphin Brain that was assembled with a 10x objective on a microscope.

Dolphin Brain on Neuroinformatica.com [neuroinformatica.com]

Once you get to the page, zoom in about ten times using the + magnifying glass icon.

The file is 135,000 pixels wide by 200,000 pixels high which would take 77.25 Gigabytes to store uncompressed. The compressed size on the server is 3.912 Gigabytes.

Re:sigh

[phsdv]

yeah right, you are clearly not Dutch. Otherwise you would have known that there are no woman living in Delft. Like 99% of all students are male (technical university), and thats probably the same for people working at TNO.

Re:Bah...

[phsdv]

No film scanner used here. This photo was taken with a Digital camera, the Nikon D1.

And scanning grain is already possible. The newest 4000DPI scanners very often have a grain reduction function...

Re:How about the inverse?

[madstork2000]

I was going to mod some comments, but thought I would help you out instead. KDE built in printing dialog has this functionality.

If you are printing from a non-KDE app, specify "kprinter" as the print command. The Print dialog comes up and choose "Properties" (The should be a button next to the printer select drop down.

Anyway, among the tabs (probably hidden from view) is a "POSTER" tab. This will allow you to pront anything supersized.

I have not used this too much myself so I cannot speak as to quality, but I know the function is there if I need it. I'm sure you can find much better info on the net than I can provide....

-MS2k