14 DAY TRIAL // There seems to have been a veritable ‘gigapixel’ war brewing for these last few months, as world records for the largest panoramic images are being smashed at a break-neck pace. The record was at 18 gigapixels in December 2009, it became of 26 gigapixels in March 2010 and, now, it’s at 45 gigapixels thanks to a stunning, new panoramic view of Dubai. The quality of the image is not extraordinary, as the author points out, but, as a technical achievement, it’s certainly impressive.
“This was only ever intended to be a technical test - I'm making no claims with regards [to] photographic quality or artistic merit! It was more about exploring the limits of both the hardware and software that is available out there,” Gerald Donovan, who shot the photos and created the panoramic image, wrote.
“4,250 individual shots taken with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L zoom at 400mm. Total shooting time circa 3 hours 30 minutes, in 37C heat (that's the temperature in the shade - the camera and lens were almost too hot to touch at the end of this),” he explained.
The shots were taken last week and then stitched together using dedicated software. The 4,250 images put together add up to a 45-gigapixel, 44.88 to be precise, image, the largest panoramic view in the world at the moment, by a fair margin.
The level of detail is impressive, if you’ve thought about visiting Dubai, this is your chance to check out plenty of the locations and the sights from the comfort of your desk. The tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai, is at the center of the image, fitting perhaps for the largest panoramic image in the world. The image is hosted by GigaPan, a project developed by the Carnegie Mellon University with help from NASA and Google. The previous record was set a couple of months ago by a 26-gigapixel image of Paris.