360-degree panoramic photograph of London is the world's largest
360cities.net has just announced that its 360-degree, 80 gigapixel photograph of London is the largest of its kind in the world. The most extreme example we've seen to date of the gigapixel photography craze, this is one truly impressive photograph of London. The insanely high resolution shows off the details of many, many human beings walking the streets of the city, as well as showing off seriously gray skies. The photograph was shot over a three day period by Jeffrey Martin, and now eclipses previous major panoramic cityscapes such as those of Paris, Dresden, Budapest and Prague. Hit the source link to waste away a few hours searching for London's own Waldo -- Damon Albarn -- in the beautiful city streets.
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360cities.net Unveils New Record-Breaking Gigapixel Panoramic Photo of London
Prague, Czech Republic, November 16, 2010
A newly published 360-degree photo of London takes the crown as the largest spherical panoramic photo in the world. The image of London, at 360cities.net/london, has a total resolution of 80 gigapixels, or 80 billion pixels. Shot by photographer Jeffrey Martin over a period of three days from the top of the Centre Point building at the crossroads of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, the image reveals the highest-resolution view of any city that has ever been captured. From this vantage point - 36 stories up in the air - an astonishing number of landmarks, houses, skyscrapers, shops, offices, and streets are visible. Countless people at street level are observable, as well as thousands of windows, many of which reveal glimpses of life inside. In short, it is a portrait of London, the likes of which has never been made before.
Previous attempts at world record gigapixels include a 26-gigapixel image of Paris, a 70-gigapixel image of Budapest, a 26-gigapixel image of Dresden, and Martin's previous record holder from 2009, an 18-gigapixel spherical image of Prague. This new London gigapixel image, if printed at normal photographic resolution, would be 35 meters long and 17 meters tall (115 feet x 56 feet).
Martin, a panoramic photographer and the Founder of 360Cities.net, created the London gigapixel image from 7886 high-resolution individual photos taken from the Centre Point building. These thousands of photos were then stitched together as one single image on a powerful Fujitsu CELSIUS workstation, provided for the project by Fujitsu Technology Solutions. The computer comprises dual 6-core CPUs, 192GB of RAM, and a 4GB graphics card.
To encourage people to explore the 80-gigapixel image of London in its finest detail, 360 Cities will launch three separate contests to find and describe items or places in the photo. In the first contest the winner will receive a Fujitsu 27" LCD monitor provided by Fujitsu Technology Solutions, computer and camera bags provided by Crumpler.com will be awarded in the second, and in the third contest, over $3000 worth of holidays will be awarded, courtesy of Intrepid Travel (intrepidtravel.com) and their subsidiary, Urban Adventures (urbanadventures.com).
Further information about the making of the image can be found at http://blog.360cities.net/london-gigapixel.
About 360 Cities
360 Cities is dedicated to promoting geo-located, high-resolution spherical imagery by providing the bestanywhere platform for publishing panoramic photography on the web. 360Cities.net is the web's largest collection of spherical, map-based panoramas, and through its partnership with Google Earth, this content is introduced to an even wider audience worldwide. 360 Cities is a Netherlands limited company with a subsidiary in Prague, Czech Republic.
