 GigaPan
GigaPan is the newest development of the Global Connection Project, which aims to help us meet our neighbors across the globe, and learn about our planet itself. GigaPan helps bring distant communities and peoples together through images that have so much detail that they are, themselves, the objects of exploration, discovery and wonder. We believe that enabling people to explore, experience, and share each other's worlds can be a transforming experience.
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The GigaPan Imager uses the same panoramic photo technology as the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, used to collect amazing panoramic images of Mars.
GigaPan Epic allows the photographer to take tens, hundreds, or even thousands of photos which will be combined later in a single gigapixel panorama. The GigaPan Stitcher is an application that assembles the pictures taken by the GigaPan device into a single, very large panoramic image.
More details on GigaPan at www.gigapan.org
GigaPan is sponsored by Google, CMU and the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group.
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GigaPan and Brasilias Project
Brasilias Project produces geolocated interactive panoramas, using GigaPan Epic robotic platform for capturing Brasilia´s very high-resolution panoramic images. The collection of documentary photographs, produced by Brasilias Project, show the many facets of Brasilia at its 50th anniversary: the monuments, public buildings, palaces, cathedrals, etc. It also documents the city challenges and its people day-to-day life, including social, demographic and traffic problems. The pictures may help to identify threats and actions needed to safeguard Brasilia’s cultural heritage assets.
Brasilias GigaPan Production - How a Panorama is Made
Making a good GigaPan panorama can be time consuming. The production process requires at least a working week to make a single Brasilias Projects panorama.
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1. Planning and Pre-production
The photographer, Adonai Rocha, makes a field visit prior of shooting. He plans for and does the pre-production research on the monument: shooting angle, verify lighting and weather conditions and find out the better time of the day (or night) for shooting. A GPS reading of the shooting point is taken. It will be later used for geolocating the photograph/monument.
Back to the office, a letter is written asking for shooting permit. The permit might not be required for shooting outdoors, unless the monument need security clearances. The permit is often requested for indoors photography.
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2. Production
Shooting a GigaPan: back to the shooting location at the previously schedule time, the photographer sets up the robotic head and camera. Define the panorama angles with the robotic head and sets up the exposure, white balance, etc. A critical photometer reading is needed as all the photographs taken must have the same exposure to be stitched together to form a single GigaPan panorama. Hundreds of photographs are taken and stored on digital cards. Batteries sets are replaced and different GigaPans are made in order to have the best one selected later. A single panorama requires hours of shooting preparation. Weather condition is crucial, as a GigaPan production can be ruined due sky clouding, moving clouds, rain, etc.
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3. Post-production
Back to the office, the captured images are transferred to the computer. The images are then treated and brightness and contrast are adjusted. They are finally stitched together to form a single GigaPan panorama. GigaPan Stitcher takes about a minute to stitch a single picture, this way a 60 picture panorama may take about an hour to be aligned.
The 50 plus megapixels final panorama file is then uploaded into the web server. The upload process might take another hour. Finally, the panorama needs to be displayed on the website and Google Earth. Next steps are geotagging and web designing for embedding the panorama.
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