GigaPan by Richard T. Bryant Published November 12, 2010
GigaPan—the ultra-zoomable imaging technology—is enabling novel
research in archaeology, zoology, and many other scientific
fields, experts said this week. The system stitches thousands of
closeup images together into panoramas of thousand-megapixel
resolution, which are hosted at the Gigapan website and viewable
from anywhere in the world. Robotics professor Illah
Nourbakhsh's CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University first
created the technology, which uses a robotic camera mount, a
software package, and a digital camera. The lab initially
received support from NASA's Ames Intelligent Robotics Group and
Google to develop the system for Mars-bound rovers. But in
recent years, the team has also crafted an affordable (as low as
$300) GigaPan tool and put it in the hands of scientists.
GigaPan workshops have since trained dozens of experts in
diverse fields, including many who attended the Fine
International Conference on Gigapixel Imaging for Science, hel